Happy Mardi Gras!

Shrimp Gumbo	Dominic Armato

Hey, this is great. Any other good food holidays we can cram into this week?

Not as dark as I would have liked, but I also wanted to feed the kids before 9:30. And FYI, oven roux is a gumbo gamechanger. Throw a dutch oven with your oil and flour in the oven at 350, give it a whisk every 20-30 minutes until it's as dark as you like, and spend the time prepping everything else rather than stirring.

Comments

[ally]

looks yummy

way to train the kids for maximum spiceitude in the early years ;)

[mncharm]

My absolute favorite New Orleans meal (among many fantastic meals) was at (and I'm about to horribly butcher the spelling, so I'll do it phonetically) YOU-ga-slit-ches, which sadly closed several years ago (pre-Katrina, actually).

Oh, man, that was some pure heaven right there.

[Token Omnivore]

Dude!

My stirring arm is still recovering after making roux twice in one week. A counter-surfing foster dog took a pyrex bowl full of cooling gumbo down to his level. Glass and gumbo all over the floor was a crime against nature.

I am *so* looking forward to try the new method.

[Independent George]

Any other good food holidays we can cram into this week?

Isn't purim coming up? I'm always up for some latkes.

[jse91]

Oven Roux knocks it out of the park every time. I doubt I will ever make it on the stove again.

Although, the traditional food of our people on Mardi Gras is pancakes and pork products.

[Anon Man]

Oven roux! What a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. Its like when someone told me to make tomato sauce in the oven. It takes twice is long, but it needs virtually no attention. Great when you're trying to cook a meal and accomplish other tasks on the same weekened day.

[Skillet Doux]

Well, I don't mean to imply the credit should be mine. Can't remember where I read about it. But it's completely brilliant, whoever thought of it first.

[Independent George]

I actually first heard of oven roux from Alton Brown.

I have a strong love of all methods involving cast iron. I use it for pretty much everything except boiling pasta, steaming vegetables, and omelets.

[Chris Hennes]

Dude, oven roux? That is brilliant. This is the first I've heard of it, now I have to go figure out who came up with it... about how long does it take to get to that really nice dark chocolate brown color?

[karl]

Yes, a ballpark estimate of how long this takes would be awesome. The stirring doesn't bother me as much as how long it takes on the stove.

[Skillet Doux]

I usually let it go about one and a half to two hours, and then when I sautee the vegetables, it goes those last couple of steps into a nice, deep brown. This one went for a little over an hour, I believe.

[Kenny]

What a beautiful Gumbo, it's so light it looks Creole which I love. The shrimp look perfectly cooked, and given what I've read on your blog the stock was magnificent. Great way to celebrate Mardi Gras. ;-]

[Genevieve]

Will have to try oven roux.

Purim is coming up, but the traditional food is hamantaschen, not latkes (they're for Hanukkah, and sometimes also eaten on Passover as long as any flour in them is potato flour). If you can make non-leaden hamantaschen, that'd be lovely. Also points for making them with the little-used-nowadays poppy-seed filling, my favorite.

[Independent George]

Ah, that's right. I just remember the Latke-Hamantash debates from way back, and that Hamantashen were served during Purim, and just linked the two together. Of course Hamantash are for purim; they're named for Haman, and shaped like his hat. I completely spaced there; thanks for the reminder.

Dom, we demand hamantaschen!