Gumbo w/ Crawfish & Oysters

Submitted by Sam_I_Am.

Yay Mardi Gras!

Shrimp Stock

• shells & heads from 2.5lbs of shrimp
• 4 Onions
• 4 stalks Celery
• 8 Bay Leaves
• 1 bunch Thyme
• 4 Lemons
• 2 T Old Bay
• 1 t Cayenne

Roughly chop everything and dump it in a big pot.

Cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for an hour, skimming any foam that happens to build up.

Strain out all the solids. I tend to use a spider to pull out all I can, and then pour rest through a strainer.

Cool. The above recipe should make about 1 gallon.

Gumbo

• 2 lb Okra
• 4 Onions
• 4 Celery Stalks
• 2 Green Peppers
• 8 cloves Garlic

• 2 sticks Butter
• 1 C Flour

• 2 t Salt
• 2 t Cayenne
• 2 t Old Bay
• 2 15oz cans Chopped Tomatoes
• 1 gallon Shrimp Stock

• 3 lbs Crawfish Tails
• 2 lbs Oysters

First, chop your veggies. Note that okra is gross. There are these little capsules of "mucilage" that turn into snot when they get wet. This is actually the point of putting them in gumbo, since they thicken nicely. Till then, it's friggin nasty.

Then make a brown roux with the butter and flour. Add in the veggies, the seasoning, and the drained tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes or so. It'll get really thick.

Add the gallon of stock and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 45 minutes.

For the seafood, go to the fish market and buy 2 lbs of rocks. They'll be in the section labeled "Oysters".

Apparently the trick to shucking them is finding the slit next to the hinge, and ramming a (strong, cheap) knife in and cutting around a bit and then twisting. (I'm not very good at it.)

It's out of season for crawfish, so buy bags of frozen tails. The trick to shucking these is, uh, cut open the bag and dump the crawfish out. :)

Anyway, drop the shucked oysters and the crawfish into the simmering gumbo and cook for another 15 minutes.

Final

Serve over rice.