hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with big chicken and sausage gumbo
that's right i love gumbo way more than i like being stuck at the stove slowly
cooking and stirring a roux for what seems like forever which is why i've
always wanted to try an alternative bake method and while i'm not sure what i
ended up with is exactly a gumbo whatever it was was incredibly delicious
and even though we didn't save any time it is gonna free us up from having to
stand and fry the stove for all those hours and we could do other things like
listening to brass bands while sipping zazz racks and the first thing we're
gonna need to do is mix up a roux which we will accomplish by adding some melted
butter and vegetable oil to some all-purpose flour and then we'll give
that a good mix with our spatula to form a paste and with the traditional method
this room would be slowly cooked in a heavy cast-iron skillet over low heat
for a very very long time until it's the exact color the chef wants which can be
anywhere from a light tan to a very very dark brown and it's that tedious and
time-consuming step that we're trying to eliminate with this alternative method
so that was the plan and then once that's looking a little something like
this we'll go ahead and transfer that into a large roasting pan preferably one
with handles and what we'll do is spread that out into a fairly even rectangle
but we will want to leave about three or four inches of the pan exposed around
the edges because that's where we're gonna place down our chicken thighs and
we want those in contact with the pan so what we'll do once our roux ro ux has
been spread out as shown is we'll go ahead and place in our chicken thighs
skin side down and i'm using four here because these were freakishly large but
feel free use like six normal ones and then besides our chicken we will also
place in some smoked pork sausage okay andouille would be the most obvious
choice but you could if you want use linguist which is what I'm using here
but really any kind of smoked pork sausage will work although something
with a little bit of spice is nice and then once that's in there we'll go ahead
and season up our chicken with a little bit of kosher salt
at which point this is ready to transfer into the center of a 400 degree oven for
40 minutes at which point is probably going to look something like this and
please note when we're popping up ham like this in and out of the oven we
always leave our towels on the handles otherwise you're gonna forget they're
hot and grab them and then what we'll do at this point is scatter on our Holy
Trinity which in the land of gumbo is what they call celery onions and peppers
and we'll go ahead and scatter that in and around our meat as well as sum over
our roux and then what we'll do before this goes back in the oven
there's take a spoon and give our Roux in the middle a quick mix and make sure
there's no spots that are getting a lot browner than other spots and by the way
they're gorgeous colors not just coming from the Browning that's actually that
beautiful orange fat leaking out of the sausage but anyway we'll give that a
quick stir and then we'll pop our pan back in the oven for another 20 minutes
at which point we'll pull it back out and again please leave the towels on the
handles and then what we're gonna do at this point is remove the meat to a plate
where we will reserve it until needed and we'll move on to the final browning
of the roux so what we'll do once our pans bendy
meeted let's go ahead and give our roux and veggies a mix and then we'll spread
that out nice and evenly at which point we're gonna pop this back
into the oven for maybe about another 20 to 30 minutes until it's as brown as we
want and while we're waiting for that we can go ahead and mix up our cooking
liquid which is gonna be chicken broth to which we will add some salt as well
as some freshly ground black pepper we will also do one bay leaf as well as
a spoon of dried thyme and then last but never least some cayenne pepper and
that's it we'll give that a quick stir and simply set it aside until needed or
if it's going to be a while pop it in the fridge because remember our roux is
going to be hot so we want our liquid cold so we don't get lumps very
important and then once that said we'll go ahead pull out our pan and check our
Roux which is looking fairly beautifully browned although truth be told I could
have went a lot darker here but the Sun was going down and I like to film with
natural light so I figured that was browned enough and once we've decided
that has baked long enough we'll quickly go ahead and pour in our cooking liquid
and then take a whisk and mix this until very very thoroughly combined and I
should mention at this point if you want to you could just transfer your
beautifully brown roux into a stockpot and then continue with the recipe as
shown using traditional gumbo technique where we would just simmer this on the
stovetop until a thickened it cooked as long as we wanted but I was in med
scientist mode here and I really wanted to see if we could make a gumbo just by
baking alone but anyway I went ahead and whisk that all together at which point I
added some diced tomatoes as well as some frozen sliced okra that I thought
and then once we give that a stir we will add our meat back in oh and just
because I'm doing sausage and chicken here
does it mean you can't add other things in here as well okay some duck legs
would be nice or maybe some smoked ham or maybe later on when it's close to
being cooked we could throw in a handful of shrimp or crawfish all right that's
up to you I mean you are after all the lieutenant Columbo of this bait gumbo
and you really do get to add whatever you want but anyway once everything's
back in the pan and we've given that chicken a little basting we will pop it
back in the oven for about 30 minutes or so or until our gumbo is thickened up
beautifully and our chicken is very very tender and by the way during this last
baking step it's not a bad idea to open the oven a couple times and carefully
give it a stir which I did twice and you could if you want to add more broth if
you don't want it this thing as you can see mine ended up pretty stodgy oh and
I'm sorry I'm gonna have to stop here for a second
so I can explain we're gonna be a couple odd looking movements I noticed one of
the thighs didn't look as dark as the others so I found a piece of charred
onion and I placed it on top of that thigh thinking that it would look a
little better in the pictures but anyway questionable food styling aside we will
want to check our Gumbo's consistency and of course seasoning and once I
determined I was happy with that I went ahead and garnish with some sliced green
onions and of course if you want to skim some of that delicious chicken and
sausage fat off the top feel free although that probably would
be frowned upon in Louisiana although I'm guessing this whole dish would be
frowned upon anyway once we're happy with how that's looking and taste and
we'll go ahead and serve it up which I'm gonna do on some white rice and if
you're an extra considerate host you might want to think about removing those
thighs pulling all the meat off the bone and then putting it back in so the folks
can just enjoy a pure skinless boneless gumbo but I didn't and decide to serve
it whole and speak in a large pieces we could have definitely sliced that
sausage a little smaller career was cooked to make it a little
more user friendly so we'll add that to our list of ways to fine-tune this but
anyway I finished up with a few more green onions at which point I dug right
in anxious to see how my crazy experiment turned out and first the good
news this tasted incredibly delicious and was very very gumbo like right other
than maybe roasted in the roux a little darker I thought this came out very very
good but there were a few issues all right this bowl was way too small
and I served it on way too much rice and while I really did enjoy it thoroughly
it probably was a little too thick but anyway all those issues I just mentioned
are easily fixed with more broth a bigger bowl and less rice and the most
important thing to remember here this experiment was mostly about baking the
roux so we're not stuck at the stove having to spend all that time stirring
so in that regard this was a smashing success and like I said as far as ease
of eating goes you may want to consider separating that meat from the skin and
bones and tossing it back in although if you did that you probably wouldn't get
to eat a piece of sausage wrapped in chicken skin which is exactly what I'm
doing here and for me that made serving the whole thigh totally worth it
but anyway whether you make this gumbo as shown with a few minor adjustments or
you just use this method to cook your roux in the oven instead of on top of
the stove either way gumbo is never not an incredible thing to make and eat
which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the
links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more
info as usual and as always enjoy
you