Shrimp & Okra Gumbo








						Shrimp And Okra Gumbo


	Ingredients 1 lb fresh shrimp; peeled and-deveined 1 pk (small) dried shrimp; washed- well 4 tablespoon cooking oil 5 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 md onion; chopped 3/4 c whole tomatoes 1 piece bell pepper; diced 1 bay leaf 1 rib celery; chopped 1 pk (8-oz) frozen okra; cut in-small pieces 1 clove garlic; mashed 1 tablespoon green onions; chopped 1 tablespoon parsley; chopped 3 1/2 pt water 1 tablespoon Clayton's Acadian Seasoning & Rub Instructions Put fresh, washed shrimp in 1 pint of water with 1 teaspoon salt; cookover medium heat about 5 minutes or until shrimp turns pink. Turn off heatand leave covered 3 minutes, drain and reserve liquid for gumbo ln a large pot with heavy bottom, heat oil; add flour. Make a Roux (brown flour in oil) of deep golden brown; cook on a low heat, stirring constantly. Take pot off heat and quickly add onions and garlic; cook 4 minutes. Return to heat; add bell pepper, bay, leaf, broth with remaining water and dried shrimp. Let come to a boil; then add tomatoes and okra, stirring until itcomes to a boil again. Reduce to simmer and cook, covered for 1 hour. Add cooked shrimp, green onion and parsley to gumbo just before serving. Servein soup bowls with cooked rice. Note: For a different taste treat, shrimp gumbo file is made the sameway, only omit okra, but putting 1/4 teaspoon gumbo fil, into each serving. (Do not cook fil,). Fil, is herb powder made from sassafras leaves, and canbe found in most stores in the spice section.


	The History Of Gumbo

		Gumbo has been called the greatest contribution of Louisiana kitchens to American cuisine. When the first French settlers came to Louisiana, they brought their love for bouillabaisse, a highly seasoned fish stew. Having none of the usual ingredients necessary to make a typical French bouillabaisse, they substituted local ingredients. After about a century, with the Spanish, Africans, and Natives of the region offering their contributions of food, the stew was no longer recognizable as bouillabaisse and became gumbo. What started out as second best became better than the original. The word gumbo is derived from African words for okra (guingombo, tchingombo, and kingombo), a pod-like vegetable introduced by African slaves and often used to thicken the stew. Gumbo is a classic Cajun one pot, communal stew that is especially important around Mardi Gras (the Mardi Gras season officially begins twelve days after Christmas, on January 6, and culminates on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent). There is only one rule that remains constant in making gumbo: First you make a roux. The roux, a flour and oil or butter mixture, which acts as a thickening agent, is the gumbo's base. There are no other hard-and-fast rules for the ingredients used in making gumbo - anything that flies, crawls, creeps, or lies still may end up in the gumbo pot. There are as many recipes for gumbo as there are cooks in Louisiana. The making of gumbo draws out the competitive streak in most Louisianans, and most cooks closely guard their recipes.


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