Shrimp gumbo for Mardi Gras – okra, shrimp, filé

Here is my shrimp gumbo recipe to add to our Mardi Gras festivities! 

And here is another Mardi Gras favorite – shrimp gumbo, one of my favorite foods for Mardi Gras season. Gumbo is a famous type of stew or soup, made with any kind of seafood and sometimes chicken. Shrimp gumbo has a unique taste from the okra and filé. Filé is ground sassafras leaves! Shrimp and okra are plentiful in the summer too!

You will need a sharp knife, a large pot, big spoon, foil, and a baking pan for shrimp gumbo. (My pot is 8 quarts).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cover the baking pan with foil, dull side up. Carefully spread the flour thinly over the baking pan.

Place on the middle rack of the oven to toast the flour. Stir occasionally. After 30 min. the flour should be a tan color.

Dice the bell peppers and banana peppers into half inch squares. Mince the garlic. Louisiana has its own version of mirepoix called Holy Trinity. It is a chopped mixture of onion, celery, and bell pepper. If you decide to go this route, I suggest taking it easy with the onion and perhaps only use 2 slices of onion so as to not make the taste too prevalent.

Cut the tops off the okra and discard. Slice the okra into ½ inch slices. (Note: this recipe works fine with frozen okra, which may be easier to find in the winter. And it gets soft faster!). 

Heat the pan to medium (I put a generous pat of butter in the pan – when it melts I know it’s hot.) Add the olive oil and immediately add the toasted flour. Stir together to make a roux. Cook and stir until smooth and the color of an old penny. This should take about 5 minutes.

Add the peppers, okra, and garlic. Cook and stir until the peppers lose their crispness.

Add beer and chicken broth. Add bay leaf, Cajun/Creole seasoning, and Pickapeppa sauce.

Bring to a boil, lower the heat to simmer. Cover and cook for about an hour (longer if you want the okra to really fall apart).

Add shrimp and cook for 10 more minutes. Add the gumbo filé powder. Remove bay leaf.

Mound rice into a bowl and serve gumbo on top. Serves 6. Serve with French baguette and put some gumbo filé and hot sauce on the table! Tip: Serve with cauliflower rice if you want less carbs!

Tips: 1) Roux, okra, and filé are all thickening agents. You can get away with leaving either the okra or the filé out. 2) To defrost frozen cooked shrimp: Place shrimp in a bowl of cold tap water for 20 minutes. Pour into a colander and rinse. 3) This shrimp gumbo tastes fine with the addition of other seafoods (fish fillet, oysters, crabmeat), chicken, or even sausage. 4) You can make roux the traditional way by adding flour to oil in a hot pan. You will need to cook and stir for about 20 minutes.