Smoked Chicken, okra, and sausage gumbo with pics

[chisoxjim]

Knew it was fixin' to rain Sunday, so I smoked up some chicken thighs, and a pound of kilbasa on Saturday while I had the WSM going with some ribs.

Chicken thighs turned out nice, and half of the kilbasa was quickly eaten before I had to hide the rest.

Used a variation of a Chef Paul gumbo recipe(really need to work my way through his family cookbook, great recipes).

Did a 20 minute roux using seasoned flour and lard, then made my gumbo broth adding chicken stock & the pulled thigh meat. Soon after followed the diced onion, green pepper, celery, garlic, and a bay leaf. Simmered for a while then added some sausage, okra & parsley. Finished each bowl with gumbo file & a half a hardboiled egg. Nice version for sure. Cant wait to taste it tonight after a couple days in the fridge.

thighs:



ingredients:



done:



thanks for checkin' my pics out.

 

[roller]

It looks great. I do some of that myself..I understand about the couple of days in the frig...

 

[rbranstner]

That looks great I love Gumbo.

 

[chisoxjim]

thanks guys, it was a good batch, alot of chunks of okra, sausage, and chicken. I added the okra late so it would hold up better.

 

[smoke 2 geaux]

From a guy in gumbo country, let me congratulate you. That looks excellent. If you have the K-Paul cookbook, you are cooking the real deal.

 

[chisoxjim]

thanks,

the next recipe I want to try is a crawish bisque recipe he has in there, The recipe calls for you to stuff the crawfish heads, and return them to the bisque with the tail meat.. that cant be bad...

 

[smoke 2 geaux]

No, it's awesome. Cleaning all those heads is a little time consuming, but totally worth it. My grandmother used to take a whole day to make crawfish bisque. That's why we only had it once or twice a year. It's one of those rainy day dishes. But then again, for us smokers, spending ten hours cooking something is no big deal....lol

 

[Bearcarver]

Okra???
Looks good, but I never had it, but I'm only 61.

Doesn't she have a talk show??


Bearcarver

 

[roller]

You want me to send you some okra seed to plant so you can have some this year??? Mine is just coming up...This is much better than the talk show...lol

 

[oklahomajoe]

I usually take a day and stuff and bake about 200 heads. I freeze em in packs of 25 and make my gravies throughout the year.

 

[chisoxjim]

I bet, I am going to tackle of batch with the stuffed heads before the crawfish season runs out hopefully.

 

[chisoxjim]

sounds like a great method, thinking I may try this. thanks for the idea.

 

[twistertail]

wow that looks great. I love gumbo but have never made it from scratch, usually us the Zatarans stuff. I've never seen it with the hard boiled egg, but then again I know nothing about Cajun cooking, is that something you came up with on your own or is that the way it is supposed to be served?

 

[chisoxjim]

I have had it with the egg, and without @ restaurants. The Chef Paul cookbook recipe calls for the hardboiled egg so thats the route I have gone the last couple times. With all the other flavors going on in the gumbo it is more of a texture adding element to my tastes.

 

[smoke 2 geaux]

The boiled egg is an old cajun thing. Basically it was used back in the day as a filler when there just wasn't that much meat to go around. It became part of the tradition and some people still make it that way today. I do it occasionally, but not all the time.

 

[denver dave]

Gumbo looks great. I could do without the Okra. Never have been able to stomach the stuff. It's a texture thing.

 

[chisoxjim]

i hear you, I have only started eating okra in the past 5-10 years.

 

[twistertail]

Thanks for the info bout the egg, not much Cajun influence in central Ohio

 

[richoso1]

Points to you and thanks for making my memory scream for the times I spent in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafeyette, and Shreveport. Keep posting those type of pics, I need the pain. It's all good my friend.

 

[chisoxjim]

thanks,,

I have a buddy heading to NOLA for Jazzfest today, I had to do something to ease the pain of not going with.