Louisiana Fish Gumbo

Gumbo is a stew that originated in southern Louisiana during the 18th century.

It’s made from a strongly-flavoured stock, meat or shellfish, a thickener or roux, and what Louisianans call the holy trinity of vegetables, celery, bell peppers, and onions. This dish is delicious with some warm crusty bread.

We teamed up with Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) to create this tasty recipe. ASMI celebrates wild, natural and sustainable seafood such as salmon and pollock.

Ingredients

1 medium onion
1 stick celery
1 medium green pepper
2 cloves garlic
120g dry cured spicy sausage OR Chorizo
2 courgettes
1 x 5ml spoon sunflower oil
1 x 15ml spoon plain flour
½ x 5ml spoon crushed chillies (optional)
1 x 5ml spoon paprika
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
200ml water
480g frozen pollock fillets
10g parsley
1 lemon

Equipment

Colander
Weighing scales
Chopping board
Sharp knife
Garlic crusher
Measuring spoons
Wooden spoon
Slotted spoon or tongs
Small mixing bowl
Can opener
Wok or large frying pan with lid
Plastic cup
Scissors
Kitchen roll

Instructions

1. Wash all the vegetables in the colander and pat dry with kitchen roll.
2. Peel and finely dice the onion. Finely chop the celery, courgettes and green pepper, peel and chop or peel and crush the garlic cloves.
3. Slice the spicy sausage or Chorizo into discs about as thick as a £1 coin.
4. Measure the sunflower oil into the wok and turn the heat on to medium.
5. Gently fry the sausage or Chorizo until the fat is released and it starts to crisp. Remove from the wok using a slotted spoon or tongs and set aside until later.
6. Add the onions, celery, peppers and garlic to the pan and fry gently on a medium heat until the vegetables are soft.
7. Measure the flour, paprika and crushed chillies into the small mixing bowl.
8. Add the flour and spices to the vegetables and stir with the wooden spoon, cook for a further 5 minutes to cook the flour (the pan will start to smell ‘toasty’).
9. Add the chopped tomatoes and water to the pan, stirring to make sure there are no lumps of flour.
10. Return the sausage or Chorizo to the sauce.
11. Place the fillets of pollock on top of the sauce, put the lid on the pan and cook gently for approximately 10 minutes or until the fish is flaky
    and cooked through.
12. Whilst the fish is cooking chop the parsley with the scissors in the plastic cup and squeeze the juice from the lemon.
13. Just before serving, add the lemon juice to the Gumbo, gently break the fish into chunks and sprinkle the parsley over the top.

Skills used
Peeling, chopping, crushing, measuring, frying, mixing, frying and boiling/simmering.

Top Tips

• Traditionally Gumbo is made with okra, an African vegetable, but we’ve used courgettes in our recipe. For a vegetarian version, leave out the sausage and try using smoked paprika instead of sweet.

Something to try next time

• You could substitute any fish or seafood for the pollock in this recipe.
• This dish tastes even better made ahead of time. Cook the sauce up to the point where you add the fish (step 11) then cover, cool and keep in the fridge or freezer. Reheat and then add the fish when you’re ready to cook.
• You can cook the fish from frozen in this dish.