Seafood Gumbo

Missy shared another family favorite - (remember her Nana's Pralines? OMG if you haven't made those yet you should go do that immediately! click here for the recipe) - Seafood Gumbo. I've never made seafood gumbo and am always looking for new recipes so couldn't wait to try this - the original recipe calls for snapper and oysters in addition to shrimp and crab, but Missy just does shrimp and crab, and leaves out the okra (yay, I dislike okra)...and since she says this is great I'm making it exactly like she does! Here is her version of the recipe, you can find the original if you click here.


Ingredients

1. 1 cup vegetable oil
2. 1 cup all-purpose flour
3. 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
4. 1 cup chopped green bell pepper
5. 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
6. 1 cup chopped celery
7. 3 tablespoons minced garlic
8. 1 1/2 cups beer, such as Abita Amber
9. 6 cups veggie stock
10. 2 tablespoons file powder (*also called gumbo file)
11. 2 bay leaves
12. 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
13. 3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
14. 2 tablespoons kosher salt
15. 1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
16. 1 pound medium fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
17. 1 pound crab claws
18. 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
19. Hot cooked rice
20. Garnish: chopped green onion

Instructions

1. In an 8-quart stockpot, heat oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes; add flour, and stir together to form a roux. Cook, stirring often, until roux is the color of peanut butter, about 20 minutes.
2. Add onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic.  Cook vegetables, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Add beer, stock, file powder, bay leaves, Cajun seasoning, Worcestershire, salt, and cayenne. Bring mixture to a boil; reduce heat to medium, and simmer for about 1 hour.
3. Add shrimp and crab to mixture. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until seafood is cooked through; add parsley.
4. Serve with rice, and garnish with green onion, if desired.

notes: I halved the recipe and wish I made the whole thing so there would be more leftovers - guys, this is really good! After saying I was going to follow her recipe I did change a couple things...
1) Dave doesn't like lots of onions and peppers so I used less but added chopped carrots to make up the difference.
2) it calls for 1 1/2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper, I halved everything else but only used 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne - was worried it'd be too spicy. It was a little warm for me but the kind of almost too spicy that is addictive and makes you want to keep eating it! I had no problem with the heat.
3) I couldn't find the gumbo file powder at our little grocery store so ordered it from Amazon! Missy says she gets it at the grocery store tho so check there first...it's ground sassafras leaves and doesn't taste good on its own but for whatever reason makes the gumbo so good! Not sure I'd leave this out (like I contemplated doing when I couldn't get it locally).
4) served it over hot white sticky rice, the rice really absorbs the sauce which is just delicious!
5) I used half butter (for flavor) and half oil.