Being a desert dweller from the east coast, I yearn for seafood. S0, after a couple of trips to Charleston, SC that found me eating seafood at every meal, I came home and worked up this recipe for Gumbo.

As all proper gumbo goes – you must have the holy trinity of celery, onion and bell peppers, but I have added some green chili to southwest it up a bit. Also included – the obligatory smoked sausage and a bit of bacon to start it off, (because you can’t EVER find tasso ham in New Mexico! EVER!) And then there’s the seafood. You can substitute any seafood  you like.

Serves 6 to 8
Here are the ingredients:

1/2 cup half chopped bacon
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cups each of chopped
celery
onion
red bell pepper
1 bag of frozen okra
1 cup chopped hot green chili – this is the NM ingredient!
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp cumin (another NM ingredient!)
1 Tbsp fresh thyme
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
3 dried bay leaves
1 tsp salt
1 or 2 cups clam juice (I like two, but don’t always have that much on hand)
4 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
1/2 tsp coarse black pepper
3 links smoked sausage (I used two links of regular beef smoked sausage and one link of Louisiana hot links from Costco, all are fully cooked)
2 cups of medium to large shrimp (tail on, tail off, unpeeled – it doesn’t matter.)
2 cups of crab meat (imitation crab is ok, but the real stuff is better!)
2 cups small bay scallops
File (pronounced “fee-lay”. Use as seasoning at the table)
Roux, (pronounced “roo”) – make your own if you like, (link below). I’ve used Doguet’s Cajun Roux, which comes in a jar and is so damn good. Roux is a MUST for Cajun cooking and is a whole nutha topic in itself. People will argue about how to make roux forever, but here is a useful link that you can use to make your own to store in your fridge. Very useful for all kinds of cooking!

I think that’s everything.

Using a stew pot – heat oil to pretty damn hot and stir in the bacon until it is crispy, but not burnt. Then add the celery, onions, garlic and bell pepper, stirring often until the onions are just about clear, 5-7 minutes. (If medicating, add your cannabis oil now and stir well*).

Add chili, thyme, parsley and cumin with 3 cups of water, 1 cup of the chicken stock and the clam juice and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a medium simmer, add sausage, bay leaves, salt and pepper and cook for about 15 minutes.

Add about 1 cup of roux and as the liquid cooks down continue to add the rest of the chicken stock a cup at a time, and at about 30 minutes add the frozen okra.

It has been about 45 minutes of cooking now and I am getting really hungry. I cook it all for another 15 minutes and add the seafood and let it go another ten minutes. I can’t wait any longer…serve over cooked white rice and add file to taste. Mmmmm. This is really good gumbo!!!!

*To medicate this, add your desired amount of concentrated cannabis oil (FECO) during the 1st step. If you are not familiar with cooking with cannabis oil, check out this post first.