Gumbo Time

The CSA fall greens were getting out of control again, so we made Crescent Dragonwagon's gumbo tonight. I think it's our third batch of gumbo this fall. It's labor-intensive enough that we usually only make it once, and never on a weeknight. I can't decide if we're getting better at doing all the chopping cheerfully, or if we just have an extraordinary quantity of greens this fall and no other ideas for using them up. You can halve the recipe easily, but it freezes nicely if you want to make a big batch. (The link has the big original recipe, from Soup & Bread; she cut it in half for Passionate Vegetarian.)

One thing that the linked recipe does not make clear enough: it is really easy to burn your roux. This is not the quick and easy roux that a person would use to make a speedy white sauce. This is the Louisiana version of roux, in which you are slow-toasting flour in hot oil for flavor instead of thickening. If you accidentally skip from slow-toasted to scorched, you have to start all over, even if you have already given your roux 50 minutes of your life. I am generally pretty comfortable with kitchen multi-tasking, but I have to keep a roux on the front burner of my brain as well as my stove. I don't stand there for an hour and do nothing else but stir the roux, but I have learned that it works better if I have very modest expectations for getting other gumbo steps done.

Also, it is really easy to burn your tongue if you are tasting to see whether the roux is scorched. I am often surprised by how much hotter oil gets than liquids get if they are mostly water, even though I should know better by now. The very worst thing is when you suspect you have burned the roux, and you taste it hopefully only to discover that you have burned roux and burned tongue. Talk about leaving a bad taste in your mouth!

I have now made this recipe sound like a total pain in the butt. Which is appropriate, because it is definitely a pain in the butt. SO yummy, though. If you have greens threatening to deliquesce in your crisper drawer, and a loved one who is willing to chop veggies and stir slow-toasting flour with you on a weekend afternoon, I encourage you to give it a whirl. I'm planning to eat the leftovers for breakfast and lunch tomorrow; that's how much I love this recipe.