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| Gumbo served with rice and filé powder. |
Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh. For a pdf file of all of Denise’s info, click here.
This was my first foray into Gumbo land. It's been on my to make list for a while, but since I don't live in the US anymore, it has had a low priority. I'd read that you couldn't make true gumbo without filé powder and I'd never seen that in my US grocer, so it was on hold. Early one morning in April, however, while killing time before my flight to the US in a hotel room in Frankfurt, I logged onto the Daring Kitchen and discovered that I would be making gumbo within the next month. I added filé powder to my must-buy-while-I'm-in-the-US list and got excited.
I also had to admit that part of the excitement came from the creator of the recipe: John Besh. I was a Food Network junkie when I lived in the US and definitely remember John Besh from The Next Iron Chef. He was one of my favorites, and while he did not win, he did make the final two. And now I got to try out one of his recipes!
