Eh, it'll probably be ready around 5-6 pm. Started at 11 am with cooking a pound of bacon. Put the bacon grease in a little saucepan with a stick of butter, added 2/3 cup unbleached flour, 1/3 cup of whole wheat flour. Put on medium high head, stir continuously until it's the color of a dark chocolate bar. It'll smoke, and smell like it's starting to burn, just keep stirring. Once it's done, pour quickly into a pyrex bowl, set off the heat, and let cool. Turns into a thick goop the color of coffee grounds, and smells heavenly. That's the roux. (pronounced 'roo').
Cut up two pounds of chicken breasts, into about 3/4" cubes. It's best to use a ceramic knife, on chicken that is just a tiny bit still frozen so it is easier to cut. Dump the chicken into a big (I'm using a 16 qt stock pot, and it's barely big enough) stock pot on medium high, and cook through. You'll get chunks and bits of chicken stuck to the bottom, along with a thick carmelized scum in the bottom of the pot. Leave it. Once the chicken is cooked, dump it into a large bowl, set aside in the microwave (not to cook, just to keep it out of the way and people from nibbling at it). While the chicken was cooking, I cut up:
Two big green peppers.
Two huge yellow peppers.
A huge red pepper and a little red pepper.
Two orange peppers.
Two Hungarian wax peppers (a little warm, because my wife doesn't like food too spicy. For myself I prefer jalapeno's)
An entire bag of celery, leaves and all
Two huge sweet onions
Those go into the stock pot, crank the heat to just under high, and let 'em cook. Stir once in awhile, and it gets all that stuck on chicken and baked-on-carmelized-goodness off the bottom of the pot. Keep cooking until the onions have gone translucent.
While that's cooking, cut up:
1 lb of andoulli sausage
1 lb smoked turkey sausage
1 lb turkey kielbasa
Now add two quarts of chicken stock. Due to a supply error, I'll be using one quart of chicken, one of beef.
Dump in the cut sausages, add water if necessary until the level is right around the top of the ingredients. Add a several heaping tablespoons of roux, a big tablespoon of crushed garlic, some salt, pepper, paprika, ground red (cayenne) pepper, and stir it in good. Let it come to a gentle boil, and cook for about 1-1.5 hours, until the sausages are mostly done. Dump the chicken back in, cook for another 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally. And yes, that's 5 lbs of meat and about 6 lbs of vegetables, plus stock. Takes up a bit more than half of a 16 quart pot.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, and ground red pepper. Serve over jasmine rice with a good cold beer on the side, maybe some deep fried breaded okra as a side dish. I generally make as big of a batch as I can, because it freezes really well, and it's quick 'n easy to make meals with the frozen portions. Just throw in a pot with a splash of water, when it's mostly thawed get some rice started in the rice cooker. by the time the rice is done, the gumbo is hot and ready to go.
Right now it's on the stove simmering. The aroma is making me drool, and it's driving the dogs insane. It's got about 30-35 minutes till the chicken goes back in, then it'll simmer until the chicken is just short of falling apart.
There's only a few things I can make really good.
Gumbo.
Sauerbraten.
Coffee.
Ice.
