Crock Pot Seafood Gumbo - Recipes That Crock! (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good gumbo? ›

Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.

Thou Shalt Always Use a Bowl. If you use a plate, it is not gumbo it is rice and gravy! Thou Shalt Only Use a Wooden Spoon. There is only one kind of spoon that can enter a gumbo pot and that is a wooden one.

No. Shrimp is delicate and easily cooked in the heat from gumbo as it bubbles away—even after you turn off the heat (but before you remove it from the burner.) It takes around 3–4 minutes, generally, so add them at the last, so you don't wind up with rubber instead of delicate, well-cooked shrimp.

And you can't rush it. A really great gumbo takes the better part of a day to make, from prepping the ingredients, to making a roux, to simmering everything low and slow. Slow cooking allows all of the flavors to marry together and keeps the gumbo from burning or over-reducing.

Gumbo is much denser than a simple soup; the broth has a thick, almost viscous consistency. And that characteristic is most commonly created by making a roux, cooking flour and oil together until they thicken and darken. Otherwise, gumbo can be thickened with file, which is just powdered dried sassafras leaves.

First mix a little of the gumbo liquid with the dry roux to make a paste, then whisk that slurry into the rest of the gumbo and bring to a simmer. There really is no place for water in gumbo. Instead, create a flavorful broth. Even common, store-bought chicken broth adds more flavor than water.

I - Thou Shalt Never Use Tomatoes If we've learned anything from the Disney folks, it's this. Any cooyon with half a brain knows "Making Gumbo 101" contains this golden rule -- it's roux-based and not tomato-based! Tomatoes are for things like spaghetti sauce.

For purposes of this discussion, we will limit our focus to plain old polished white rice. Even then, it comes in different sizes — short, long and medium grain. I prefer medium grain rice in a gumbo, because the grains puff up, the perfect medium for a gumbo. The thick gumbo juice sticks to the grains just right.

Shrimp only need a few minutes to cook on their own. They should be added to the gumbo pot immediately after you have turned off the heat so they don't get overcooked and tough.

Shrimp Gumbo – Instant Pot Recipes. Shrimp's popularity makes it easy to find in almost every grocery store. If you are able to source fresh shrimp from your fishmonger then use those, but frozen shrimp will work just as well.

What kind of crab do you put in gumbo? ›

Toss the shrimp with Old Bay and Cajun seasoning and add to the gumbo pot, cook for about 4 minutes. Add the lump crab, very gently stir in so as not to break up the crab too much; simmer just until heated through. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Bring gumbo to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes. Then reduce heat to maintain a slow simmer uncovered for approximately 1 hour or an entire day. If gumbo gets too thick, add a little water. If it is too thin, continue to let it simmer uncovered.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.

Yes, you could increase the quantity of roux even more to thicken the gumbo further, but the toasted flavor and fat can really start to weigh the gumbo down if you get too roux-heavy. So you still need a way to push the liquid in the gumbo to a more spoon-coating texture. Enter okra and filé powder.

Spices and herbs like parsley, thyme, bay leaves, cayenne pepper, and filé powder all add to the rich flavor profile of the gumbo.

Filé can provide thickening when okra is not in season, in types of gumbo that use okra or a roux as a thickener for gumbo instead of filé. Sprinkled sparingly over gumbo as a seasoning and a thickening agent, filé powder adds a distinctive, earthy flavor and texture.

There are three ways to thicken gumbo, but the most commonly used method is to add roux. Roux, which is made with equal parts flour and butter and slowly cooked over low heat, is added to hot gumbo stock. The starch in the flour breaks down to become gelatinous, and gives heft to the stock without altering the flavor.