Seafood Gumbo Recipe

SEAFOOD GUMBO YIELD:

9 gals.

1-1/2 lbs. margarine

4 lbs. fish (cod, haddock, flounder, ocean perch, red snapper, sole or turbot),

3/4-in. diced

6 lbs. shrimp 21-25 peeled and deveined

4 lbs. crabmeat, thawed and well drained

4-1/4 qts. chopped clams, canned, not drained 1 cup oil

1-3/4 lbs. onion, 1/4-in. diced

4 garlic cloves, fresh, minced

1-1/2 lbs. green pepper, 1/4-in. diced

1-3/4 lbs. mushrooms, canned, stems and pieces, drained

4 oz. chicken base

1 gal. water

3 qts. ground tomatoes

2 cups Burgundy wine

1 cup minced parsley

1 tsp. crushed oregano

1 tsp. bail 1/3 cup salt

1 tsp. black pepper

1. Heat margarine and saute fish for 3 mins. Add shrimp and saute 3 more mins. Remove from heat and refrigerate to 40 Fahrenheit.

2. Add crabmeat and chopped clams to the above.

3. Heat oil and saute onion, garlic, green pepper and mushrooms until done.

4. Add chicken base, water, tomatoes, wine, parsley, oregano, basil, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer 30 mins.

5. Add cooked seafood and heat to 160 Fahrenheit.

Seafood Gumbo Recipe is one of those dishes that's become almost a sacrament in New Orleans. Yet even in Lent, it's not cooked or eaten as much as it used to be. Variations on chicken-andouille gumbo have largely taken its place on menus around town, and even the once-nearly extinct gumbo z'herbes has taken its place as the Official Gumbo of Lent.

I can think of two reasons why this is so. First, seafood gumbo recipe is not easy to make. If you do it right, it's an all-day deal. You have to dig up a bunch of ingredients you're not likely to have left over from other cooking projects: crab and shrimp shells (not to mention crab and shrimp meat) and okra.

And once you make okra, you find it has a very limited life. Any restaurant that wants to have seafood gumbo on its menu has to make it every day.

The okra is also a deterrent. There was recently a survey in Bon Appetit that identified okra as the least-favorite vegetable in America. (They must not have had many votes from the South.) Even here, a lot of people are less than enthusiastic about okra and look for ways to eliminate it from gumbo. But the word gumbo literally means okra, and when it comes to seafood gumbo it seems essential to me.

It's a sign of the vitality of our local cuisine that you'll find almost as many different approaches to gumbo as you will cooks who make it. I'm willing to accept any gumbo on its own terms unless it fails me completely in the flavor department. So there's no definitive, ideal seafood gumbo out there.

However, I do have some personal ideas on the subject. To my palate, seafood gumbo went off the rails about 20 years ago when chefs started making it thicker. Some versions are now so thick that they could be eaten with a fork. I think this is all wrong. Gumbo is a stew-like soup, but it is a soup. The version I grew up with (my mother made it almost every week) was as liquid as any other soup she served us. The thick gumbos have no more flavor than the sloshier versions.

Also, the best gumbos to me have what I call a "green" flavor. There's this background taste of green onions, parsley, thyme, bay leaves or even file -- although the latter seems to me more associated with chicken gumbo. That taste, set against the flavor of Louisiana-style hot sauce (an essential element) is what makes seafood gumbo really exciting.

One trend pushed by the same guys who made the soup thicker is an improvement. Classically, gumbo was made with second-tier seafood: crab shells and claws, smallish oysters and teeny shrimp. But the high-end places don't feel they can put that out at the prices they charge, so they use better-looking seafood. They still have to cook the soup with the old junk -- there'll be no flavor otherwise -- but it's nice to have those big shrimp slipped into the pot a few minutes before the stuff is served.

To really enjoy seafood gumbo, you need to reorient your thinking about it. While a cup of seafood gumbo is nice before a fried seafood platter, gumbo is really best as an entree. It certainly has the substance to stand on its own; it's a meal in itself. But we diners have a hard time getting our heads around the idea of soup for an entree in a restaurant.

Despite that, my nominee for the best seafood gumbo in town right now is being served exactly that way. At Commander's Palace, Chef Jamie's $27 lunch special, which in other parts of the year features things like his lump crabmeat hockey pucks, is these days in orbit around a very, very good version of seafood gumbo. It's gilded: big hunks of seafood in there, including all the classics and a few of the not-so-classic. I defy anybody to eat this and say he's hungry or has an empty space in the soul afterwards. That's number one on my Pursuit of Excellence list of best gumbos. Here's the rest of the list:

• 2. Bruning's. This has what I consider to be the classic old-style seafood gumbo taste and texture. The broth is light but the flavor is very big. This is good either as a starter or entree.
• 3. Drago's. They demonstrated to me that gumbo is better if it's held for a day before being served. Theirs is a little different from most --it seems to me there's a touch of tomato in there. But it's very good.
• 4. Delmonico. The old Delmonico had one of the best classic seafood gumbos in town. While the renovated restaurant under the ownership of Emeril Lagasse has "kicked it up a notch," this is one of those really thick versions of gumbo I complained about earlier. Still, the flavor is there and the seafood component is generous, and you won't go away from it unhappy.
• 5. Alonso's. This great old seafood joint in Old Jefferson makes a first-class gumbo, heavy on the little shrimp and crab claws. Looks and tastes exactly right.
• 6. Middendorf's. They do everything the old way here, and I'd say their version of seafood gumbo comes closer than any other to the one my mother grew me with.
• 7. Gumbo Shop. I've always liked the seafood gumbo here better than the others they do. It's made in huge quantities, but fresh and frequently, and they have the formula down.
• 8. Court of Two Sisters. What made me believe flint this may not be the tourist trap it's reputed to be after all was a meal I had here about 15 years ago that started with seafood gumbo. I remember it to this day as one of the best I ever ate. And it's still that way; every day.
• 9. Crazy Johnnie's. Here's a real surprise: a bar whose main food specialty is cheap steaks does a good seafood gumbo? It doesn't make any sense, but there it is: a very large bowl for about $5. Very good by any standard.
• 10. Coffee Pot. This place is so deep in the tourist center of the French Quarter that most locals have forgotten about it. But since the 1940s they've made all the Creole specialties well, and their gumbo is something of a miracle in being not only excellent, but consistently so.