How New Orleans’ Best Gumbo is Made

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Meg Bickford,

executive chef here at Commander's Palace in New Orleans.

Today I'm gonna make our version of perfect seafood gumbo.

[bell dings]

Commander's Palace has been a landmark

in this garden district neighborhood since 1893.

Gumbo is a type of stew.

It will usually have a roux, some sort of stock,

and it will always be packed full of flavor.

Gumbo is going to be different

if you walk down the block to a different restaurant,

depending on whose mom's house you're at.

Gumbo is a melting pot of traditions and cultures and people

and phenomenal flavors and experiences.

I am not here to claim that ours is the best.

I'm making our perfect version.

[bright music]

Today we're making seafood gumbo,

so before we do anything else,

we need our seafood stock.

To start, I've got just a little bit of oil in a heated pot.

We have smashed garlic.

Smashed it's gonna release a little more flavor

and some sweetness.

To that we have more aromatics.

We have leeks, onions, and celery.

I'm just trying to lightly caramelize these vegetables,

get 'em to sweat a little bit,

but I definitely don't want anything to brown.

The whole point of a stock is that we're trying to extract

as much flavor as we can

from the main component of the stock.

Now that we have allowed our vegetables

just to kind of loosen up a little bit and get warm,

we are adding white wine.

We're gonna use a really dry white wine.

It's just gonna pair really well with that seafood flavor.

We have some aromatics here,

some lemons with the pith and peel cut off,

and some fresh tomatoes.

We're looking for some acidity here.

And we're also looking for just a little bit of viscosity.

It's gonna help give our stock a little bit of body.

It's all about light, subtle flavor.

We've got salt, black peppercorns and bay leaves,

and here I just have some green onions that are chopped up,

some fresh thyme and some fresh parsley.

[ingredients plop]

We're gonna let our white wine come up to a simmer.

We want that wine to reduce a little bit and intensify.

We're gonna do this now before we add the seafood

so that we can really protect that seafood

from harsh cooking.

These crabs have their back removed

and they're not in perfect condition.

You can see this is just a half of a crab.

These crabs are perfect for stock

because what's left inside them

is lots of awesome flavor. [shell cracking]

A lot of them have fat still in them and meat,

and so we're gonna extract

everything we can from these crabs

and they're gonna give beautiful flavor to this stock.

We have wild white shrimp shells

that have just been crushed up,

so we get a lot more flavor out of them.

And then here we have that trim from our drum

and our red fish.

So I'm adding cold water

because I do wanna drop the temperature of this pot.

Another key, especially seafood stock,

is to gently cook everything,

which is why time is so important.

'Cause the longer you cook it,

the more you're gonna extract flavor out of it.

And now you can see some little bubbles happening.

We're gonna turn this down a little bit

just to kind of maintain this temperature.

You see that the water is moving,

but the mass is kind of protected.

It's not really tearing anything up.

That's what we're looking for.

This is gonna sit for at least 45 minutes,

but I would never go longer than

an hour and a half, two hours.

So I'm gonna push this pot to the back burner

and we're gonna move on to our next step

to make our seafood gumbo.

[upbeat music]

In your typical gumbo, you will start with a roux

or a thickening agent.

We're gonna start with a very neutral cooking oil.

This is actually soybean oil.

The reason that I like to use soybean oil is

because it has a very high smoke point,

meaning that I can get the oil very, very hot

and it's still gonna maintain its very neutral flavor.

I have preheated my pot to speed up the process.

I want this oil to be very, very, very hot

to almost smoking point.

Today we're making a dark roux.

It's typically made with oil and flour.

So adding my flour to my oil,

you see it immediately kind of erupts and starts to fry.

The blonde roux's gonna give you

a lot more thickening power.

Blonde roux are not cooked as long, so that flour

really thickens anything that it's in much quicker.

A dark roux, all of this toasted flour notes,

its nuttiness,

that lends all of the flavor.

So you're not gonna get very much thickening

from a dark roux.

You've gotta babysit a roux.

Roux burn very, very easily.

If you see as I'm stirring, you don't want any flour

to sit on the bottom of the pot too long

because they will brown very quickly and they will burn.

I am just gonna stir. I'm gonna stir, I'm gonna stir.

I'm gonna stir until I get a really beautiful,

dark, dark, dark chocolate brown.

If you start to see black specks in your roux,

call it a loss, move on.

It's burnt. That's okay.

You will always taste that.

There's no way to hide a burnt roux.

Now that we have our dark roux, beautiful color,

we're getting some quick bubbles.

We're gonna add our trinity: onion, bell pepper, and celery.

That might sound very familiar to the French mirepoix,

but here in South Louisiana,

peppers grow really, really well.

And so those carrots just kind of got lost

and peppers got swapped in.

So we are gonna start with our onions, peeled and diced.

You see, it really wakens that roux up.

So the onions immediately start to fry.

I cut my peppers a little bit larger.

You don't want your vegetables to completely disappear.

Yes, you want them soft.

You wanna get all of the great flavor out of them.

Celery and dice that.

So we're gonna let this roux in this very hot pot

kind of fry our vegetables a little bit

until they just start to break down and get soft.

As that roux sits in that bottom of the pot,

it is gonna continue to brown a little bit.

But the addition of the vegetables

really kind of halts the roux for the most part.

I didn't add the garlic initially when I added the trinity

because I don't wanna burn that garlic.

But we're at this point where I think she can go in.

A big part of Cajun and Creole cuisine

is building of flavors.

We'll season this pot quite a few times as it cooks.

We're gonna start with some dried thyme and bay leaves.

Now we are gonna start incorporating stock.

[jaunty music]

We are gonna slowly incorporate the stock

into this massive roux so that it really gets homogenous.

We almost wanna emulsify the stock and the roux together.

If I dumped all of the stock in now,

there's a good chance that we would have clumps

of that roux that isn't gonna break down.

That's the last thing you want.

You start this process slowly until I find

that consistency that I'm looking for.

With all of the different types of roux

and all of the different types of gumbos,

gumbos are served very differently.

Here at Commander's, we like to serve ours a little thicker.

We also don't serve our gumbo with rice.

We have a nappe here.

If you can see on my spoon,

it really coats my spoon very nicely.

So that's what we're looking for.

Again, the more that this gumbo cooks,

the vegetables break down more,

they're gonna lend themselves to the thickness of the gumbo.

We're gonna add a generous amount of salt at this point.

Got a little bit of smoked paprika

and some chili powder.

We're gonna fold in our okra.

The okra, we have nice and thin here,

so it will cook quickly.

Okra is a very classic ingredient to gumbo.

A lot of people argue that

that's where the name gumbo came from

is the African word for okra.

And we're gonna add concasse tomatoes.

Those tomatoes are gonna add acidity,

but they're also gonna add some viscosity to the gumbo too.

As they start to break down,

they're gonna give it some good body.

Worcestershire.

We love Worcestershire, that beautiful tang.

A little anchovy in the back and hot sauce.

If you know anything about New Orleans,

you know we love our hot sauce.

I do like to add fish sauce.

Not too much,

but I just find that it really,

really gives a phenomenal umami after tone.

If you had seen someone do that 10 years ago,

it would be pretty crazy.

But the Vietnamese community has

really influenced our cuisine

and our culture so much in so many beautiful ways.

The two cuisines really, to me,

blend so beautifully together.

We are adding wild white Louisiana shrimp

cut in half horizontally.

This allows the shrimp to curl a little bit

so you can get multiple things on your spoon.

We're gonna add these first

'cause they're gonna take the longest to cook.

See our shrimp,

the flesh is turning a little pink on the outside.

That's a good sign.

We don't wanna dump all of our seafood in at once

because we wanna allow the pot to regain heat.

Now we're gonna go in

with beautiful Gulf oysters, super briny.

If you notice there's a lot of liquor in this bowl.

I want that liquor, that is full of flavor.

So we're gonna add that to our gumbo.

Yes, it will thin it a little bit,

but the flavor will be well worth it.

You can see how we're starting

to get a ripple on the oyster right there.

And if you notice my pot is not boiling,

we're not gonna rip up this seafood with a rolling boil.

So this is Louisiana blue crab.

It's been steamed and cleaned from the shell.

By far, one of my favorite ingredients on the planet.

The crab is gonna fall apart very easily,

so that's why we're adding it last.

And at this point, I'm just gonna gently stir,

folding that crab meat in.

I'm not trying to break up all those beautiful lumps.

And as far as the crab, it's cooked,

so we're just making sure it's hot all the way through

and giving it a chance to like, soak up some of the gumbo

and that great flavor.

Last but not least, we are gonna add some sassafras,

really earthy.

Also used as a thickening agent,

but should always be added at the end.

Stir that in really gently just to incorporate it.

And y'all, we made seafood gumbo.

I think a lot of people would agree with me.

Gumbo is always better the next day.

All these flavors are gonna sit and meld together,

but you can't make a pot of gumbo and not sit down

and have a bowl and enjoy it.

Mm. That really is that good.

[bright music]