I love a good gumbo.  There’s not much better than a rich hearty bowl of gumbo with plenty of greens and some andouille.  Personally I prefer mine with okra, but since my wife is an okra-phobe, I usually make file gumbo at home. 

This weekend I undertook the gumbo from one of my favorite soup books, The Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread Cookbook, by Crescent Dragonwagon.  It’s a great book, and a truly fine gumbo, but it definitely takes a commitment.  You have to separately make a roux, saute some vegetables, and mix up a spice paste in a food processor.  Once all three of those are done you start the soup proper, into which goes a mess of greens.  Once the greens are cooked, you throw in the other stuff you’ve already prepared.  What comes out the other side is then your gumbo “base” which for my family actually makes three batches of soup, so I freeze most of it. 

To make the soup, you throw in some of the base with more soup stock and your meat of choice, be it andouille, chicken, crab, shrimp, whatever.  This weekend I stuck with andouille.  Our local New Seasons carries a great nitrate free smoked andouille that was perfect for gumbo. 

It’s a good 2–3 hour undertaking, but well worth the effort.  Everyone pretty much licked there bowls, so I call that a success.