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18-DEC-2004

okra for gumbo (info)

This recipe comes from the Paul Prudhomme book, "Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen."
The book has some interesting photos of Prudhomme and his wife "K" preparing blackened redfish:
quote, (the skillet) "can't be too hot." Although he later recanted that statement, on TV...

There are several gumbo recipes in the book. This one starts with browning sliced okra in fat,
and is unique in that roux isn't used as a thickener. The color and consistency
come from the step shown (browning the okra). Even at this stage, the
aroma is just incredible. (I used slightly thawed frozen cut okra).

Today, I didn't have the pork lard called for, so I used rendered beef fat (tallow) instead,
it didn't noticeably change the flavor (I also have used duck fat with excellent results).
(for tallow or pork lard, render over very low heat fat trimmings from prime rib, etc.,
for a few hours, then strain and store, covered, in refrigerator. Keeps indefinitely.)

I used canned San Marzano plum tomatoes instead of fresh
(good fresh tomatoes are hard to come by this time of year).
For fish broth, I just freeze the broth left over from poaching fish (for making fish cakes).
When I have about 10 cups accumulated, it's time to make a batch of gumbo!

And rather than adding the shrimp called for, I used some frozen red snapper filets, cut up.

(note: the cottony, area blemishes in the photo are steam rising from the stock pot.)

Konica-Minolta DiMAGE G600
1/60s f/2.8 at 8.0mm iso50 with Flash full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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