This gumbo features North Carolina style smoked pulled pork, and it includes 5 different greens to ensure you’ll meet 5 new friends.
This dish features three greens from my CSA 2021, week 4 delivery (curly kale, kohlrabi leaves, and arugula) and two greens from my garden (spigariello and chard). You don’t need to use this exact mix. But use as many different greens as you can, because legend has it that your diners will meet a new friend for every type of green you include in the pot. Also, you have to use an odd number of greens; an even number is bad luck. Watch Leah Chase describe Gumbo Z’herbs as she oversees its preparation in the famed New Orleans restaurant Dooky Chase. Unfortunately, we lost Ms. Chase, at 96, in 2019. The New York Times provided a touching obituary. She was cooking until the end. The linked YouTube video was recorded in 2017.
Note, this recipe follows the general Gumbo Mother Dish Technique, which you can leverage to make all sorts of gumbo variants, highlighting seasonal produce, regardless of the season. Photo galleries and written recipe below.
Dry Roux Walk Through
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Carolina Gumbo Z'herbs Recipe Walk Through
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Carolina Gumbo Z'herbs
This recipe follows the Gumbo Mother Dish Technique. For more information, please see:https://thought4food.life/gumbo-mother-dish-technique/Make sure you use several different types of greens. You'll meet a new friend for each type of green. But, make sure it's an odd number of greens as it's bad luck to use an even number of greens.
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil
- 8 oz smoked andouille sausage removed from casing
- 1 medium yellow onion (6-8 oz) diced
- 5 garlic cloves (25 g) minced
- 1 tsp sweet paprika smoked is nice
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes
- 8 cups broth divided
- 12 oz Carolina style smoked pulled pork
- 1.5 lbs mixed greens collards, kale, spinach, etc., stems separated, stems diced and greens roughly chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Dry Roux:
- Note, for efficiency, start the dry roux first. You can compete the mise en place for the rest of the ingredients and start the gumbo recipe while the dry roux is baking. You can also bake the roux days ahead of time, storing in an airtight container, and mix in the stock when it is time to use the roux.
- Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. (Most dry roux recipes call for lower temperatures, but I find that the higher temperature cooks faster, with little risk of burning)
- Put the flour in an oven-safe pot. I used to use a skillet so the flour spread out further, but now I use a 3 quart sauce pan which allows me to aggressively stir the flour without spilling.
- Bake the flour, stirring occasionally, until it becomes uniformly the color of ground cinnamon. Expect at least 40 minutes, up to an hour. Be careful with the pan handle when you move the pan between the oven and stove top. It’s 500 degrees! As flour approaches desired state, you will notice an aroma reminiscent of burnt popcorn. Stir more frequently as the process continues. When you stir, break up the clumps of dry flour that form. Smooshing them with the back of a wooden spatula works well for me.
- Once the flour is baked, whisk in 2 cups of broth, a few ounces at a time. Be careful of the hot handle on the pan! The roux should come together as a thick, chocolate brown batter. Be sure to whisk entirely. You don’t want any lumps of flour stirred into your gumbo.
For the gumbo:
- Start by browning the sausage in the olive oil, separating it into small pieces as it cooks. Brown is flavor. The rendered fat from the sausage will permeate the entire dish!
- Next, add the diced onions (or the Creole holy trinity if you go that route) and the diced stems directly to the pot with the sausage and rendered fat. Add ½ tsp of salt to help draw the water out of the aromatics. You should find that there is enough oil and fat to make the aromatic mixture glisten. If it doesn’t glisten, add a bit more oil. Stir frequently, until the aromatic mixture has softened, 5 or 10 minutes.
- Stir in the garlic, thyme, paprika, bay leaves, red pepper flakes and a bit of freshly ground black pepper (about 1/4 teaspoon). Allow this mixture to cook for a minute or two.
- Add 2 cups of broth to the pot and stir to incorporate. Then add the pulled pork, and use two wooden spatulas or large forks to separate the pork into shreds.
- Add the remaining 4 cups of broth to the pot. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Add the greens to the pot in batches. Each batch should quickly wilt, making room for the next batch.
- Slowly whisk the roux into the gumbo, a bit at a time. Make sure every bit gets fully incorporated. You can taste for seasoning at this point. The flavor of the roux at this point will not be pleasant. But over the next 30 minutes it will mellow and incorporate with all the other flavors in the gumbo.
- Simmer the gumbo for another 30 minutes. Simmering for longer is just fine.
- One final opportunity to taste for seasoning. For most gumbos, I usually stir in about 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar at this point, but the Carolina style pulled pork already had some vinegar in its seasoning, and the flavor was already bright. You may find the same. If you are serving with rice, you will want the gumbo to be just barely over-salted, to compensate for the unsalted rice.
- Fish out the bay leaves. Plate with rice and garnish with something green – scallions, parsley, oregano are all nice options…
Notes
The Creole/Cajun holy trinity is onion, celery and green bell pepper. That's the traditional aromatic blend for gumbo. Dice that up if you have it, but 8 ounces of diced onions isn't a bad start.
Do destem the greens with thick stems. But don't throw out the stems. Dice them up and cook them up with the aromatics.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
