RouxBDoo's Crock-Pot Gumbo

Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo

OK, I have used a Crock-Pot occasionally over the years, but I recently bought a new, large, Crock-Pot with a removable crock, which makes it easier to clean.  So far I have made Red Beans and Rice, Stewed Chicken Legs, and and Chili.  I had been wanting Gumbo here recently and a friend of mine from Louisiana sent me some nice Andouille Sausage.  So I tried my new Crock-Pot and Andouille at making gumbo... Ahhhh, I love the sweet smell of success when you wake up in the morning with a kettle full of Gumbo.  Needless to say, it was successful and tasty.

I suppose you could use this recipe to make seafood gumbo, but I wouldn't put the seafood in the Crock-Pot until the last hour.  This is a Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo using a rotisserie chicken from the Grocery or Mega-Mart store.  You need to make the roux first on your stove, you can buy pre-made roux in some regions, I have no experiience with it to give you an opinion on it.  Chef Dave here at the theater has used Chef John Folse's ready-made roux and loves it.  Anyway, here we go.

Ingredients
1 cup of oil
1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 lb andouille smoked sausage (sliced 1/4 in.)
1 rotisserie chicken
1 large onion (diced)
3 -4 ribs of celery (diced)
1/2 lg green pepper (diced)
12 oz. package frozen okra
1 small can Rotel (10 oz. drained) *Optional
2 tbs minced garlic
4 -5 green onions (sliced thin)
8 -10 cups water
4 tbs powdered chicken stock (or 2 stock cubes)
1 tbs Tony Chachere's
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Italian herbs
2 tbs parsley (dried or fresh)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 - 2 tbs Louisiana Hot Sauce (your choice)

1 tsp Liquid Smoke *Optional

This Light brown Roux is just perfect.

Preparation

Prepare your Crock-Pot by spraying the inside with non-stick cooking spray.  I use a 7 quart Crock-Pot and I would estimate this recipe makes 4 to 5 quarts. Make sure your Crock-Pot is big enough for this recipe or else you might need to cut back on the amounts listed, or even cut the recipe in half. 

Combine the oil and flour in a cast iron skillet (or similar skillet) and stir constantly, on high, until you have achieved a light brown roux. You do not want a really, really dark mahogany roux, for this recipe it needs to be the color of light chocolate.

Once you have the roux finished, turn off the heat, add your onions, and stir them in and let them cook in the roux for five minutes. You need to let this cool just a bit and transfer it into your Crock-Pot.

Now add all of your celery, green bell pepper, garlic, and green onions (reserve a quarter cup of green onions for garnish). Dissolve the powdered chicken stock in a cup of water. Add this and 8 more cups of water to your Crock-Pot. Stir well to combine the water with the roux, making sure it is dissolved well.

Break your rotisserie chicken down and remove all the bones, skin, fat, and cartilage from the meat.  Give the meat a rough chop, but don't mince it up too fine.  Put this nice chicken meat into the Crock-Pot and stir it well.  Add the rest of your ingredients to the pot give it a really good stir and put the lid on it. I let mine cook for one hour on HI, then I turn it down to LOW and cook for seven more hours.

Serve this gumbo with white rice and garnish with the remaining green onions. If you are able to get filé powder, add 1 tablespoon to this recipe.

If you guys like this recipe, let me know.  I might post my Red Beans recipe for you.  My next post will be about my buddy Eric, who is a Red Bean fanatic, he has a wonderful blog and a crockpot cookbook you guys need to download.  I'll try to get Eric's post lined up next week maybe.

Mississippi Crock Pot Roast Beast

Roast Beast with biscuits.

Okay, here's the deal.  I have rarely, if almost never, have cooked in a crockpot.  I don't even own one.  I had to borrow my neighbor Jessica's crockpot to make this recipe, but I HAD TO, tell you why.

As you folks well know, anytime anything goes viral on the internet, everyone's talking about it.  This recipe was one of those.  This recipe was like an urban legend, so it being close to Halloween I thought I'd make it.  Now there's nothing supernatural about it.  You don't have to chant the words "Pot Roast" in the mirror 13 times for it to appear, but the method is quite strange for cooking this beast.

I found the recipe several times on the blogs and sites and all pretty much stuck to the gospel.  Same ingredients, cooking time, claims of disbelief, but their families loved it.  Some make it every week, some twice a week.

What's funny is in the comment section of the blogs that posted this recipe.  I have always noticed this but for this recipe it was rampant.  After the blogger posted the recipe, about half of the comments were "Awesome", "Amazing", "Delicious", but then the other half, while complimenting them, kept posting what they did different form the recipe.  It would be like, "Well we're watching our sodium, fat, red meat, and can't have anything spicy, so I substituted red wine for the au jus, left out the ranch mix completely, exchanged the beef for chicken, and substituted the pepperoncini peppers with kumquats.  It was awful."

Yep, that's a stick of butter.

So I made the recipe EXACTLY as written, (I did add 3 extra peperoncinis since they were small) and cooked it overnight in my neighbor's crockpot.  The next morning the air was heavy with savory beef fumes.  This thing smelled GREAT! I quickly made a pan of biscuits and tried out my roast beast.

Now, I will tell you this up front, I expected it to be so tender it would fall apart before you could lift it with a fork.  It wasn't quite that way.  It was tender-ish, but did it ever have a great flavor.  Man the meat and resulting au jus, (gravy) was amazing.  Those little peppers added the right combination along with the mixes I added.  You have to give this recipe a spin when you can.  Maybe an upgrade in the grade of chuck roast, or longer cooking time might make the tender factor elevate.

Be sure if you make this, and love it, to tell me what all you did different from the recipe in the comments you leave.  Just kidding, I rarely get comments except from my friend Ramona, whom I love for reading my blog every time.

Sorry, I am obliged by "Blogger  Law"
to display the ingredients.

Mississippi Pot Roast
1 beef chuck roast, 3 - 4 lbs
1 packet McCormicks powdered Au Jus mix
1 packet Hidden Valley powdered  Ranch Dressing mix
1 stick of butter
6 - 8 pepperoncini peppers

Preparation
Spray your crockpot with non-stick cooking spray, place roast in the pot, cover top with ranch mix and cover that with au jus mix.  Lay the stick of butter on top and scatter the pepperoncinis over the top of the powder covered roast.  Replace lid and cook for 8 hrs on LOW.

Now, here's the warning.  DO NOT ADD WATER.  This roast makes its own juice and blends it with the butter and mixes and... oh bru-thuh is it good.  Try it over biscuits like I did, you'll thank me with a big ol' sloppy kiss.

That's it!  Can't mess it up.  If you do, please write me a comment telling me what you did to mess this up.  I'll add it to the "we used wine" "we hate peppers" "I'm a vegetarian, can I make this without meat" comments which always follow a recipe like this.

Drag out that crockpot of yours, or borrow the neighbor's, run to the store and make this recipe.  Else you'll always wonder if it was true... what they said about that roast on the internet.  Oooooooooo.

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet" -Abraham Lincoln

I'll have some Halloween fun on here in a few days.  Keep the SPIRIT!

Roux-B-Doo-B-Doooooooo