ciao hounds! let's bowl over this super bowl party...

so there i was - faced with a super bowl party and a need for a dish to impress, i put on my thinking cap and came up with a pretty obvious choice - GUMBO! a team from new orleans is playing - heck, what else do you make??? we had the prerequisite chips, queso dip, wings, hummous, pita, bagel chips, beer, beer and more beer (the new belgium ranger ipa made its debut), but needed something thicker, richer, spicier and cajun to soak that beer up.

so i pulled out my emeril recipe book and made up some of his "kick butt gumbo" and decided to kick it up a bit myself. first, i made roux. wow. i had never made roux before - i had no idea how this was going to go. i followed e's directions to "constantly stir" until it became a dark chocolate brown roux. this was about a 30 minute process. for those of you who have not made roux before - it is simply flour and oil heated over medium heat and stirred. apparently there are different colored rouxs you make for different types of food, but the darker roux you need, the longer you need to stir - which gets pretty tiring when you're making roux for gumbo feeding 16! but i have to say, as i was stirring, i started considering roux - where was it originated? who made it the first time? were there times when all people had to eat was roux? and i found myself slipping into this daydream about being in new orleans at the turn of the century, stirring up a huge vat of roux in the heat and humidity of the south. there was something deeply spiritual and, well, stirring, as i watched this flour oil mixture transform into the base for my gumbo.

it called for pork butt, andouille sausage, and tasso ham. i could only find one package of the andouille, so i picked up some chorizo links (after consulting w/my cooking guru jamie imus) which i boiled up then sliced up. i also wanted to have some seafood to go along with the pork products and got a couple pounds of cocktail shrimp. mmmmmmtasty.

as the gumbo cooked, the house filled up with the smell of the roux, the peppers, the cayenne, garlic, onions, etc. it was amazing.

needless to say the final result was amazing. i ate enough of it to counteract the five ipas i drank that day, and i feel, to help the saints on to victory. WHO DAT?!!