Good Eats gumbo recipe and streaming Mardi Gras music
By Mark Czerniec
February 19, 2007 10:10 AM

Here's another example of why I think Good Eats is one of the best shows in the history of television: Not only does Alton Brown give us an entertaining half hour of viewing, but we also get some real life, hands-on kitchen activity, a classic recipe that we can use and improvise upon for years to come, and knowledge that can be applied to a host of other cooking situations. Along the way, he ingeniously eliminates an obstacle that has been tripping up Cajun and Creole and European cooks for centuries.

Last Wednesday's episode was called "Bowl O' Bayou" and the topic was gumbo, a well-known and dearly loved Louisiana and Lowcountry standard which, while made from simple ingredients by ordinary people, has a certain exotic, mystical undercurrent about it that turns nonnative cooks hesitant.

In practice, the main stumbling block is the roux — a seemingly simple mixture of just vegetable oil and all-purpose flour in equal parts (measured by weight, not volume, as Mr. Brown helpfully notes). Historically, the oil and flour have been continuously whisked in a pan over low heat for an extended time, gradually passing through various stages of copper color and brownness to the ultimate perfect shade. The problem is that one second beyond that beautiful chocolate stage lurks burned and ruined roux. The ages echo with the screams and curses of cooks who have had all their stirring wasted, with no gumbo to show or eat.

Alton Brown's brilliant solution is to cook the roux in a cast-iron pot (we love our Dutch Oven) inside a 350° oven! No more burning, you stir it maybe three times over 90 minutes, and you're freed up to do something more productive, like deveining the shrimp and making the shrimp stock. The man is a genius, and he comes up with innovations like this all the time.

Here's his gumbo recipe: Shrimp Gumbo

One ingredient that's not easy to track down in Racine, Wisconsin is the filé powder. We used Tony Chachere's Creole Gumbo File, found in the spice aisle at Woodman's Food Market in Kenosha along I-94 at Highway 50.

Another rare item around these parts is Andouille sausage. Some of the local grocers and butchers sell varying sausages of the same name, but there's nothing even close to the real treasure found at, say, Wayne Jacob's Smokehouse in La Place, Louisiana. I had first thought to substitute some readily-available hot Italian sausages, but we ended up buying "Cajun Style Sausage" made by Klement's in Milwaukee, and it was all right — much better, at least, than the "New Orleans Brand Smoked Sausage" sold by Johnsonville, about which the less said, the better.

We bought the shrimp at Empire Fish in Milwaukee, our new go-to seafood store since Houmann's closed its retail side. The 16-20 size were $8.99 a pound. Since the gumbo would be our dinner, we went with bigger shrimp than the recipe calls for. They looked terrific, and turned out to be delicious and satisfyingly substantial. Amy's only regret was that they had no heads, which would have enhanced the stock even more.

I have had gumbo in Louisiana, in Layfayette and New Orleans. I have had gumbo in Beaufort, South Carolina, and I love the gumbo at the original Heaven on Seven in Chicago. Nevertheless, the gumbo we made last night was as good as any of them. Thank you, Alton Brown! We served it over Jasmine rice and splashed it with Crystal Hot Sauce.

Finally, I wanted some appropriate dinner music. My first thought was to download a few more Mardi Gras-related tracks from the iTunes Store, but then it hit me that I could probably find some streaming music that would do the trick. Sure enough, NOLA.com has a nice little Mardi Gras Radio player with about a half hour of some very good stuff. Run it through the stereo and suddenly you're second-lining in the comfort of your own home.