I decided that I would create a Chicken and Sausage Gumbo for my dear friends in Germany who I was visiting for the Christmas & New Years Holidays. I went shopping to get the ingredients, with a friend from Holland who wanted to see how to make Gumbo. We did all the prepwork of measuring out spices, making the chicken stock, coating the chicken with my cajun rub, fried the chicken after seasoning it and chopped all the veggies.
I pulled out my soup pot and began the roux. Roux for Gumbo can be tricky to make, but I never had a problem with it to date. So I confidently began to whip up the roux. It seemed to be coming along nicely, but then... I noticed some black flecks in it. I could not figure out what they were, since I had never burned my roux before, and usually it is cooked almost to the color of dark chocolate. I frowned and said hm...but continued on since there was no burned odor eminating from the pot.
I quickly dumped the chopped veggies in and started stirring, all going well so far! Until my friends husband comes in and and said "What happened to this?" I automatically answered "Nothing, everythings ok!". He begins gesticulating wildley towards the counter. I look at what he is pointing to: the whisk. It is half melted away. It took me a moment to grasp the situation... Only when he said: "we can´t eat that" did I realise what had happened! Those black specks were the whisk coming apart! I was horrified!!!
Good thing he came along! My friends are still laughing about it...they had fun envisioning the nextdays morning paper: "American poisons town doctor & family!" I heard the story retold quite a bit to date and we all laughingly agreed that they would have years of milage on this one.
End result: recut veggies and did a new roux, had dinner with freinds & neighbors last night who loved the Gumbo, and the Dutch friend will try to recreate in Holland for a party. And learned lesson, never assume something is teflon if in cooking spoon drawer!
Look for my Chicken & Sausage Gumbo Recipe in the next posting!
I pulled out my soup pot and began the roux. Roux for Gumbo can be tricky to make, but I never had a problem with it to date. So I confidently began to whip up the roux. It seemed to be coming along nicely, but then... I noticed some black flecks in it. I could not figure out what they were, since I had never burned my roux before, and usually it is cooked almost to the color of dark chocolate. I frowned and said hm...but continued on since there was no burned odor eminating from the pot.
I quickly dumped the chopped veggies in and started stirring, all going well so far! Until my friends husband comes in and and said "What happened to this?" I automatically answered "Nothing, everythings ok!". He begins gesticulating wildley towards the counter. I look at what he is pointing to: the whisk. It is half melted away. It took me a moment to grasp the situation... Only when he said: "we can´t eat that" did I realise what had happened! Those black specks were the whisk coming apart! I was horrified!!!
Good thing he came along! My friends are still laughing about it...they had fun envisioning the nextdays morning paper: "American poisons town doctor & family!" I heard the story retold quite a bit to date and we all laughingly agreed that they would have years of milage on this one.
End result: recut veggies and did a new roux, had dinner with freinds & neighbors last night who loved the Gumbo, and the Dutch friend will try to recreate in Holland for a party. And learned lesson, never assume something is teflon if in cooking spoon drawer!
Look for my Chicken & Sausage Gumbo Recipe in the next posting!
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Yummy..yummy....it looks good and tasty!
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