Southern Cooking PT. 1 Seafood Gumbo


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Well, I am from the South. Born and raised. We are known for our cooking so thought I would throw a few REAL Southern recipes on the forum. Enjoy and more to come.

NOTE: I put How to make Roux on here. You can also Google it for different perspectives. You can also buy a jar of Roux in most grocery stores to make it simple.

Roux

The fat used in roux may be butter, shortening, lard, oil, or even bacon drippings. Combine fat with an equal amount of flour ; 1/2 cup of each will make a good amount and any excess can be stored in the refrigerator. (Many cookbooks call for a little more fat than flour - 2/3 cup oil to 1/2 cup flour is a common ratio.) Melt the fat in a black skillet over low heat. When warm and fluid, sprinkle the flour in a little at a time, stirring. Stir constantly until brown (this may take 20 to 30 minutes) ; immediately remove from heat or add ingredients your recipe calls for. If it burns even slightly, throw it out and start over again.

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup roux, see recipes below
  • 2 large onions, chopped
  • 3 cups okra, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 can (14.5 ounces) stewed tomatoes
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 quarts water
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
  • 6 to 8 green onions, finely chopped
  • 2 pounds shrimp
  • 1 cup oysters
  • 1 cup crab meat
  • crab claws
  • hot cooked rice
Preparation:
Add shrimp to roux and cook for a few minutes. Set aside. Cook okra and onions in hot oil. Add tomatoes and garlic when okra is almost done. Cook a few minutes longer, then add water, salt and pepper. Combine shrimp and roux mixture with okra; simmer about 10 minutes. Add oysters, crab meat, and crab claws; simmer for 15 minutes. Add parsley and green onions and simmer another 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve with hot cooked rice.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I wouldn't consider roux to be a "southern" recipe. Rather, it's more just a Gulf Coast thing, mostly LA, MS, and AL. Then again, the natives of those areas tend to think of anything more than 150 miles or so north of them to no longer be The South. I'm from TN originally, been on the coast since '98, and people here still think of me as a Damn Yankee. In any case, thanks for the recipe. For as long as I've been here, I still can't make a decent roux. I buy it in a jar as you suggest.

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Please...all these attempts at the best food on the pallet at any time is clearly...

NORTHERN ITALIAN

Next...

A...

loves being a food dick!

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Dauce - my kind of woman - bland. It's not easy being bland. I once once proudly had some people for dinner. Spend three days making Bouillabaisse from scratch - starting with 5 pounds of fish head and bones for homemade broth. Then 20 pounds of lobster shrimp crabs, fish, etc. Cooking my usually way, I left out all the spicy stuff - bell pepper, pepper flakes, fennel, chile pepper, etc. I was so proud of my first Bouillabaisse. Then I watched my guests' faces. Those all-too-forced smiles. Guess they couldn't deal with the lack of spices.

Well screw it. I'm an individual who is spicy enough without all that pepper crap. BLANDS UNITE!! James Taggart ate chile peppers - enough said.

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Dauce - my kind of woman - bland. It's not easy being bland. I once once proudly had some people for dinner. Spend three days making Bouillabaisse from scratch - starting with 5 pounds of fish head and bones for homemade broth. Then 20 pounds of lobster shrimp crabs, fish, etc. Cooking my usually way, I left out all the spicy stuff - bell pepper, pepper flakes, fennel, chile pepper, etc. I was so proud of my first Bouillabaisse. Then I watched my guests' faces. Those all-too-forced smiles. Guess they couldn't deal with the lack of spices.

Well screw it. I'm an individual who is spicy enough without all that pepper crap. BLANDS UNITE!! James Taggart ate chile peppers - enough said.

Hmmm...now that is fascinating...

I will put my Catholic priest collar on, invite you into the confessional booth/Tardis, and, ...

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Dauce - my kind of woman - bland. It's not easy being bland. I once once proudly had some people for dinner. Spend three days making Bouillabaisse from scratch - starting with 5 pounds of fish head and bones for homemade broth. Then 20 pounds of lobster shrimp crabs, fish, etc. Cooking my usually way, I left out all the spicy stuff - bell pepper, pepper flakes, fennel, chile pepper, etc. I was so proud of my first Bouillabaisse. Then I watched my guests' faces. Those all-too-forced smiles. Guess they couldn't deal with the lack of spices.

Well screw it. I'm an individual who is spicy enough without all that pepper crap. BLANDS UNITE!! James Taggart ate chile peppers - enough said.

Yess! At last a straight black pepper person and not much of that who can empathize. Coincidentally |I had mussels for lunch today in a very very mild curry flavoured sauce which sent me straight to the baking soda \(

much cheaper than tums\)

I am surrounded here by best Indian, Thai etc cuisine most of which is wasted on me.

And yes, vanilla in preference to chocolate.

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and ... I will feed you some bland Bouillabaisse. Serves you right.

Dauce - my kind of woman - bland. It's not easy being bland. I once once proudly had some people for dinner. Spend three days making Bouillabaisse from scratch - starting with 5 pounds of fish head and bones for homemade broth. Then 20 pounds of lobster shrimp crabs, fish, etc. Cooking my usually way, I left out all the spicy stuff - bell pepper, pepper flakes, fennel, chile pepper, etc. I was so proud of my first Bouillabaisse. Then I watched my guests' faces. Those all-too-forced smiles. Guess they couldn't deal with the lack of spices.

Well screw it. I'm an individual who is spicy enough without all that pepper crap. BLANDS UNITE!! James Taggart ate chile peppers - enough said.

Hmmm...now that is fascinating...

I will put my Catholic priest collar on, invite you into the confessional booth/Tardis, and, ...

Don't do it Ginny! He takes pictures!

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Dauce, finally someone who prefers bland vanilla to chocolate. That's sisterhood for ya.

Black pepper only in emergencies. Salt is the only spice in my cubboard.

I adore Indian curry, but have you ever tried to order curried shrimp with absolutely no spices? Man, talk about awkward.

Yawn - yes, I know he takes pics. I also know what he does with them. There are pics of him and his pics.

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Yes, they literally cannot understand "mild" as we do. a little bit of curry powder in a lot of sour cream does make a nice white sauce though, and I admit to putting four grains of cayenne in quiche. But that is as far as I go.

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I am going next door to watch Boston v Pittsburgh (I predict fights) at the pub where they serve delicious bread puddings lightly flavoured with nutmeg and lots of vanilla and crème ecossaise .(it is just crème anglaise overpriced|)

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Women ...wonderful experiences...from birth to debauchery...

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I always enjoy a good recipe. That said, bouillabaisse is Greek. Marseilles was called MARSALA long long ago. Fish was a rare delicacy to the Greeks who exploited the Mediterranean until it was nearly depleted. Only the retreat and collapse of civilization several times saved the inland salt sea. (See Courtesans and Fishcakes by James N. Davidson.)

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I always enjoy a good recipe. That said, bouillabaisse is Greek. Marseilles was called MARSALA long long ago. Fish was a rare delicacy to the Greeks who exploited the Mediterranean until it was nearly depleted. Only the retreat and collapse of civilization several times saved the inland salt sea. (See Courtesans and Fishcakes by James N. Davidson.)

Yep...anytime you need a negative lol

he is right there...

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Women ...wonderful experiences...from birth to debauchery...

A respectable old widow whose

Hometown team kept persisting to lose

Hit the skids and the bar

Jar by sorrowful jar

She disbursed her month's pension on booze

(not really)

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Think again, Michael. The Greeks had a fish stew. So did every one else.
"The most famous fish stew of the Mediterranean is bouillabaisse, and its home is considered to be Marseilles, although it is made in every little port throughout the coastal regions of Provence. The apocryphal story of the origin of bouillabaisse told by the Marseillais is that Venus served bouillabaisse to her husband Vulcan in order to lull him to sleep while she consorted with Mars.
Greek food writers have laid claim to inventing the precursor of bouillabaisse. They argue that when the Phocaeans, Greeks from Asia Minor, founded Marseilles in about 600 B.C. they brought with them a fish soup known as kakavia that was the basis to the future bouillabaisse. This can be said to be true only in the most general (and meaningless) sense. In fact, we have no idea whether such a soup was “brought” to the western Mediterranean. In the culinary writings of the ancient Greeks, especially as represented by Athenaeus (A.D. 170-230), there are many mentions of boiled fish, cooked in unspecified ways, as well as one fish stew made with grayfish, herbs, oil, caraway seeds, and salt.

The most likely precursor to the Provençal bouillabaisse is likely to be an Italian fish stew "

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and ... I will feed you some bland Bouillabaisse. Serves you right.

Real Amurican men don't eat bouillabaisse, especially Lombard Doms in Priest's clothing!

So I've heard.

Carol

Still mortified that at my first French restaurant age 18 I ordered ratatouille thinking it was bouillabaisse, I hate ratatouille, yuck, it was awful pretending I wanted it, I think there was squash in it, oh awful.

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Ratatouille is the devil's own dinner. Right after stuffed green peppers.

And look, lady, the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it. Gotta problem with that? If he's still got the collar on, he can take it up with the Boss later.

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Ratatouille is the devil's own dinner. Right after stuffed green peppers.

And look, lady, the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it. Gotta problem with that? If he's still got the collar on, he can take it up with the Boss later.

lol but I don't think Obama cares what Adam eats unless it were his own words re the CinC, which he is not likely to do.

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Ratatouille is the devil's own dinner. Right after stuffed green peppers.

And look, lady, the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it. Gotta problem with that? If he's still got the collar on, he can take it up with the Boss later.

lol but I don't think Obama cares what Adam eats unless it were his own words re the CinC, which he is not likely to do.

Carol/Ginny:

I do not think ms. ginny has the Dom concepts down pat, e.g.,:

the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it.

Hmm, I would love to explain the consequences of that statement in a D/s relationship. Sounds like topping from the bottom...lol.

A...

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Adam, I understand the concept of a Dom relationship. I just don't accept it. In other words, spank me and lose an arm.

Ginny:

Apparently, you do not. Safe, sane and consensual. If there is no consent, it is assault.

Therefore, one would conclude that you are not a submissive which is perfectly understandable.

A...

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Adam, I understand the concept of a Dom relationship. I just don't accept it. In other words, spank me and lose an arm.

Ginny:

Apparently, you do not. Safe, sane and consensual. If there is no consent, it is assault.

Therefore, one would conclude that you are not a submissive which is perfectly understandable.

A...

especially on this forum,, Mother Foundress notwithstanding!

Carol

Respectably Uppity in public

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Ratatouille is the devil's own dinner. Right after stuffed green peppers.

And look, lady, the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it. Gotta problem with that? If he's still got the collar on, he can take it up with the Boss later.

lol but I don't think Obama cares what Adam eats unless it were his own words re the CinC, which he is not likely to do.

Carol/Ginny:

I do not think ms. ginny has the Dom concepts down pat, e.g.,:

the damned Dom will eat what I give him and like it.

Hmm, I would love to explain the consequences of that statement in a D/s relationship. Sounds like topping from the bottom...lol.

A...

Pineapple upside-down cake anybody?

Aunt Marlene's recipe, and she always seemed so prim!

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