My rendition of my mother's basic recipe incorporates a couple of techniques from French cooking. But this is very much in the traditional Cajun-Creole style. with a roux in place of cream and all the ingredients rendered into a rough puree. This may seem like a long. involved recipe. but there are no great challenges in it. What comes out is something unforgettable. Serve it with crawfish boulettes (see recipe) added at the table.
This is my favorite style of gumbo. and one I've literally eaten all my life. (Aline is my mother's name.) It's made in the old style. which is to say that the broth is not as thick as we see in most restaurants. It is exactly what is meant by file gumbo: my mother put file (powdered sassafras leaves) only in chicken gumbo. and okra only in seafood gumbo. The file goes in at the table. and then only a pinch for aroma. It may strike you as odd. but we always ate this with a baked sweet potato. We'd scoop out have a spoonful of sweet potato. and fill the rest of the spoon up with gumbo. It makes me hungry even to think about that.
Notes from the restaurant: (For about 3 1/2 quarts, or 14 appetizer servings, or 9 main-dish servings)
This gumbo is especially good when made a day ahead to allow the flavors to marry. Special equipment: A heavy 10-inch skillet A long-handled metal whisk or wooden spoon A heavy 8-quart saucepan or Dutch oven
“In the early days, this soup was referred to around the plantations as ‘good luck’ soup. The name originated from the fact that many think that eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day will give you good luck throughout the year. I often wonder if gumbo didn't originally influence the creation of this soup.” ~ Chef John Folse. Courtesy of Louisiana Cookin' Magazine.
Black beans--also known as turtle beans. for reasons I've not discovered--make just about the best bean soup there is. When making this. I try to avoid all the techniques I use for making red beans and rice and go for a totally different taste profile. So no ham. no up-front celery taste. no bay leaves. no smokiness. In their place I use a good fresh beef stock. some carrots. and spices that tend toward the Indian side (cumin and turmeric). As for the onions. I prefer them fresh and crisp on top of the soup. Some of this comes from the Latin American style of making black bean soup. but I wouldn't call this a classic recipe in that style.
We passed the New Year switchover with relatives who live in rural Maryland. For three days solid. our kids and theirs ran sleds down a snowbank into a frozen pond. My job was to whip up a dinner every night. All I could think of was the warmth of a good soup. One of my favorites is homemade vegetable soup. My mother. who was not above serving Campbell's frequently. used to make this from time to time. and we loved it. I rediscovered it when I started going to old places like Tujague's. Galatoire's. and Maylie's. where they used the stock from boiling briskets to make the soup. So I picked up an eight-pound brisket. got the pot boiling. and six hours later I had vegetable soup with big cubes of tender beef brisket going around. I even saw some of the kids eating Brussels sprouts--which passed for the cabbage you're supposed to eat on New Year's Day to bring you lots of money in the next twelve months. The soup was even better the next day. What gives this soup a great edge is to boil all the vegetables except the carrots (which lend a nice color to the soup) separately. not in the soup itself. That way. when you add them right before serving. they're all vivid and firm and full of flavor.
When Gunter and Evelyn Preuss took over Broussard's. they were still running the Versailles and wanted to keep the two menus distinct. The Versailles was famous for its bouillabaisse. and Chef Gunter wanted something like that at Broussard's. too--but different. This is what they came up with. It was great. but not there any more: the chef's bouillabaisse has taken its place. This is easier to make. And cheaper--no saffron.
If you have a chestnut tree (unlikely). if somebody gives you a bunch of chestnuts (possible). or if you see some nice-looking. inexpensive chestnuts at the store during the holiday season (you just might). this is a terrific soup than can be made from the nuts. This recipe is a variation on one I wrote from Chef Andrea's notes in his cookbook. La Cucina di Andrea's. which is available at the restaurant.
The word "cioppino" became well-known in this country by way of the Italian restaurants in San Francisco. who even claim to have invented the dish. But this robust fish stew is identical to the cacciucco of Livorno and Genoa. You toss in just about every kind of seafood you have on hand when making it. The dish is a second cousin to the French bouillabaisse. in that it contains a great deal of different seafoods. usually in big chunks. Like bouillabaisse. it is also flavored with saffron. It's a little spicy and is a great treat for serious lovers of seafood. Wear a bib!
