Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.
We decided to try seafood gumbo and making our own shrimp stock. Making the stock was probably my favorite part of this endeavor, because it made our house smell amazing for about three days afterwards. The homemade cajun spice was out of sight and we will be using it for many things in the future. Below is the prep work for the stock including peeling and devining shrimp (not that much fun btw).
The stock was a lot of fun to make and like I said above, you should have smelled this. It doesn't look very appetizing but the finished product was worth the effort. The only issue I had was finding shrimp with the heads still attached. Next time I will just drive down to the coast and pick some fresh ones up.
Getting the rue down had me worried so I kind of cheated. Alton Brown showed a method of doing the rue in the oven over time and the risk of burning it is significantly reduced. I did this and it came out a perfect "brick" color but I forgot to take a picture. After adding all of the ingredients into the pot it was just a matter of cooking.
We served with a slice of french bread. What is not pictured is the mini shrimp po boys that were made with the extra shrimp we had. Fried them up in a nice flour and cajun spice coating with some homemade cocktail sauce using fresh horseradish. So without any further commentary - the finished product.
