Seafood Gumbo

While I’m not always a stickler about having fresh vegetables and ingredients for a recipe, Seafood Gumbo is the exception.  To have a good seafood gumbo you have to have fresh seafood and a good seafood stock to make it with. I’m sorry to tell you that you can’t just use water here. As with all gumbos there are as many different seafood gumbo recipes as there are creatures living in the water. So for a good Louisiana Seafood Gumbo recipe you have to do some work and make a fresh seafood stock and have fresh seafood to put into it.

Yield - about 3 Gallons (50 Dinner Servings)
Ingredients
2 -1/2 CUPS MEDIUM DARK ROUX (See basic roux recipe)
3 CUPS ONIONS (Diced 1/4" pieces)
3 CUPS CELERY (Chopped)
3 CUPS BELL PEPPERS (Diced 1/4" pieces)
1/2 CUP TOMATO PASTE
1/2 CUP FRESH MINCED GARLIC
5 LBS seafood of your choice
5 LBS Whole crawfish
1 TSP WHOLE THYME LEAVES
1 TBSP SWEET BASIL
1 TBSP BLACK PEPPER
4 WHOLE BAY LEAVES
1 TSP GROUND CAYENNE PEPPER
1 TBSP KITCHEN BOUQUET
2 CUPS CRUSHED TOMATO FILLETS

1-1/4 GALLON SEAFOOD STOCK
1 TBSP GUMBO FILE'


Recipe seafood gumbo instructions
Using a 20 quart stock pot heat and whisk the roux till it is light brown. Add the onions, celery, bell pepper, tomato paste and garlic to the roux and simmer over medium low heat until all vegetables are very limp.
Add remaining ingredients (except gumbo filé and Seafood) to the gumbo; cook over low heat for 40 minutes. Add the seafood and crawfish and cook for 15 more minutes. Allow gumbo to cool for 30 minutes, cover and place overnight in the refrigerator.

You can add your favorite seafood to this gumbo the main thing is to add it in the last 15 minutes so that it stays firm and keeps its own flavor. Seafood gumbo gets it seafood flavor from the stock mostly and you don't want to have seafood gumbo mush.

Recipe seafood gumbo servers 12 people