- 11 minutes ago
Chef Meg Bickford of Commander's Palace in New Orleans shows how to make authentic seafood gumbo from scratch. Using a dark roux for deep flavor and shrimp, blue crab, and Gulf oysters, along with okra, spices, and aromatics, this gumbo is a rich Louisiana classic using Cajun and Creole techniques.
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00:02Hi, I'm Meg Bickford, executive chef here at Commander's Palace in New Orleans.
00:07Today, I'm going to make our version of perfect seafood gumbo.
00:13Commander's Palace has been a landmark in this Garden District neighborhood since 1893.
00:19Gumbo is a type of stew. It will usually have a roux, some sort of stock, and it will always
00:25be packed full of flavor.
00:27Gumbo is going to be different if you walk down the block to a different restaurant.
00:31Depending on whose mom's house you're at, gumbo is a melting pot of traditions and cultures and people and phenomenal
00:39flavors and experiences.
00:41I am not here to claim that ours is the best. I am making our perfect version.
00:50Today, we're making seafood gumbo. So before we do anything else, we need our seafood stock.
00:56To start, I've got just a little bit of oil in a heated pot. We have smashed garlic.
01:02Smashed, it's going to release a little more flavor and some sweetness. To that, we have more aromatics.
01:07We have leeks, onions, and celery. I'm just trying to lightly caramelize these vegetables, get them to sweat a little
01:15bit.
01:15But I definitely don't want anything to brown.
01:18The whole point of a stock is that we're trying to extract as much flavor as we can from the
01:24main component of the stock.
01:26Now that we have allowed our vegetables just to kind of loosen up a little bit and get warm, we
01:30are adding white wine.
01:32We're going to use a really dry white wine. It's just going to pair really well with that seafood flavor.
01:37We have some aromatics here, some lemons with the piff and peel cut off, and some fresh tomatoes.
01:44We're looking for some acidity here, and we're also looking for just a little bit of viscosity.
01:50It's going to help give our stock a little bit of body. It's all about light, subtle flavor.
01:54We've got salt, black peppercorns, and bay leaves.
01:58And here I just have some green onions that are chopped up, some fresh thyme, and some fresh parsley.
02:07We're going to let our white wine come up to a simmer. We want that wine to reduce a little
02:12bit and intensify.
02:13We're going to do this now before we add the seafood so that we can really protect that seafood from
02:17harsh cooking.
02:18These crabs have their back removed, and they're not in perfect condition.
02:22You can see this is just a half of a crab. These crabs are perfect for stock,
02:26because what's left inside them is lots of awesome flavor.
02:31A lot of them have fat still in them and meat.
02:34And so we're going to extract everything we can from these crabs,
02:38and they're going to give beautiful flavor to this stock.
02:42We have wild white shrimp shells that have just been crushed up, so we get a lot more flavor out
02:48of them.
02:48And then here we have that trim from our drum and our redfish.
02:55So I'm adding cold water because I do want to drop the temperature of this pot.
03:00Another key, especially seafood stock, is to gently cook everything, which is why thyme is so important.
03:07Because the longer you cook it, the more you're going to extract flavor out of it.
03:10And now you can see some little bubbles happening.
03:14We're going to turn this down a little bit just to kind of maintain this temperature.
03:20You see that the water is moving, but the mass is kind of protected.
03:24It's not really tearing anything up.
03:26That's what we're looking for.
03:28This is going to sit for at least 45 minutes, but I would never go longer than an hour and
03:33a half, two hours.
03:34So I'm going to push this pot to the back burner and we're going to move on to our next
03:38step to make our seafood gumbo.
03:44In your typical gumbo, you will start with a roux or a thickening agent.
03:49We're going to start with a very neutral cooking oil.
03:51This is actually soybean oil.
03:53The reason that I like to use soybean oil is because it has a very high smoke point,
03:58meaning that I can get the oil very, very hot and it's still going to maintain its very neutral flavor.
04:04I have preheated my pot to speed up the process.
04:07I want this oil to be very, very, very hot to almost smoking point.
04:12Today we're making a dark roux.
04:14It's typically made with oil and flour.
04:16So adding my flour to my oil, you see it immediately kind of erupts and starts to fry.
04:23The blonde roux is going to give you a lot more thickening power.
04:27Blonde roux are not cooked as long, so that flour really thickens anything that it's in much quicker.
04:36A dark roux, all of this toasted flour notes, its nuttiness, that lends all of the flavor.
04:44So you're not going to get very much thickening from a dark roux.
04:48You've got to babysit a roux.
04:51Rous burn very, very easily.
04:53If you see as I'm stirring, you don't want any flour to sit on the bottom of the pot too
04:57long
04:57because they will brown very quickly and they will burn.
05:01I am just going to stir.
05:02I'm going to stir.
05:03I'm going to stir.
05:04I'm going to stir until I get a really beautiful dark, dark, dark chocolate brown.
05:11If you start to see black specks in your roux, call it a loss.
05:16Move on.
05:17It's burnt.
05:17That's okay.
05:18You will always taste that.
05:20There's no way to hide a burnt roux.
05:22Now that we have our dark roux, beautiful color.
05:26We're getting some quick bubbles.
05:28We're going to add our trinity.
05:30Onion, bell pepper, and celery.
05:31That might sound very familiar to the French mirepoix.
05:36But here in South Louisiana, peppers grow really, really well.
05:39And so those carrots just kind of got lost and peppers got swapped in.
05:43So we are going to start with our onions, peeled and diced.
05:47You see it really wakens that roux up.
05:50So the onions immediately start to fry.
05:54I cut my peppers a little bit larger.
05:56You don't want your vegetables to completely disappear.
05:59Yes, you want them soft.
06:00You want to get all of the great flavor out of them.
06:04Celery and dice that.
06:06So we're going to let this roux in this very hot pot kind of fry our vegetables a little bit
06:12until they just start to break down and get soft.
06:15As that roux sits in the bottom of the pot, it is going to continue to brown a little bit.
06:20But the addition of the vegetables really kind of halts the roux for the most part.
06:24I didn't add the garlic initially when I added the trinity because I don't want to burn that garlic.
06:29But we're at this point where I think she can go in.
06:33A big part of Cajun and Creole cuisine is building of flavors.
06:37We'll season this pot quite a few times as it cooks.
06:41We're going to start with some dried thyme and bay leaves.
06:46Now we are going to start incorporating stock.
06:53We are going to slowly incorporate the stock into this massive roux so that it really gets homogenous.
07:01We almost want to emulsify the stock and the roux together.
07:05If I dumped all of the stock in now, there's a good chance that we would have clumps of that
07:09roux that isn't going to break down.
07:11That's the last thing you want.
07:13You start this process slowly until I find that consistency that I'm looking for.
07:17With all of the different types of roux and all of the different types of gumbos, gumbos are served very
07:23differently.
07:24Here at Commander's, we like to serve ours a little thicker.
07:26We also don't serve our gumbo with rice.
07:29We have a nappe here.
07:31If you can see on my spoon, it really coats my spoon very nicely.
07:34So that's what we're looking for.
07:35Again, the more that this gumbo cooks, the vegetables break down more.
07:39They're going to lend themselves to the thickness of the gumbo.
07:42We're going to add a generous amount of salt at this point.
07:45Got a little bit of smoked paprika and some chili powder.
07:52We're going to fold in our okra.
07:54The okra we have nice and thin here, so it will cook quickly.
07:59Okra is a very classic ingredient to gumbo.
08:02A lot of people argue that that's where the name gumbo came from is the African word for okra.
08:07We're going to add conchisei tomatoes.
08:10Those tomatoes are going to add acidity, but they're also going to add some viscosity to the gumbo too.
08:15As they start to break down, they're going to give it some good body.
08:18Worcestershire, we love Worcestershire, that beautiful tang.
08:22A little anchovy in the back.
08:24And hot sauce.
08:26If you know anything about New Orleans, you know we love our hot sauce.
08:29I do like to add fish sauce.
08:31Not too much, but I just find that it really, really gives a phenomenal umami aftertone.
08:37If you had seen someone do that 10 years ago, it would be pretty crazy.
08:41But the Vietnamese community has really influenced our cuisine and our culture so much in so many beautiful ways.
08:48The two cuisines really, to me, blend so beautifully together.
08:51We are adding wild white Louisiana shrimp cut in half horizontally.
08:56This allows the shrimp to curl a little bit, so you can get multiple things on your spoon.
09:01We're going to add these first, because they're going to take the longest to cook.
09:06See our shrimp?
09:07The flesh is turning a little pink on the outside.
09:10That's a good sign.
09:12We don't want to dump all of our seafood in at once, because we want to allow the pot to
09:15regain heat.
09:16Now, we're going to go in with beautiful golf oysters.
09:19Super briny.
09:20If you notice, there's a lot of liquor in this bowl.
09:23I want that liquor that is full of flavor.
09:26So we're going to add that to our gumbo.
09:28Yes, it will thin it a little bit, but the flavor will be well worth it.
09:33You can see how we're starting to get a ripple on the oyster right there.
09:37And if you notice, my pot is not boiling.
09:39We're not going to rip up this seafood with a rolling boil.
09:43So this is Louisiana blue crab.
09:45It's been steamed and cleaned from the shell.
09:48By far one of my favorite ingredients on the planet.
09:50The crab is going to fall apart very easily.
09:53So that's why we're adding it last.
09:55And at this point, I'm just going to gently stir, folding that crab meat in.
10:01I'm not trying to break up all those beautiful lumps.
10:04And as far as the crab, it's cooked.
10:06So we're just making sure it's hot all the way through and giving it a chance to like soak up
10:11some of the gumbo and that great flavor.
10:13Last but not least, we are going to add some sassafras.
10:16Really earthy.
10:18Also used as a thickening agent, but should always be added at the end.
10:22Stir that in really gently just to incorporate it.
10:26And y'all, we made seafood gumbo.
10:28I think a lot of people would agree with me.
10:31Gumbo is always better the next day.
10:34All these flavors are going to sit and meld together.
10:37But you can't make a pot of gumbo and not sit down and have a bowl and enjoy it.
10:47It really is that good.
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