Sausage Gumbo

Sausage Gumbo

In the 1980's I spent a lot of time in New Orleans and enjoyed the food, the music and the history. The dishes of New Orleans reflect the varied and interesting cultures that form the history of the last three centuries. Of these dishes gumbo may be the most popular. Typically, a gumbo features seafood, chicken or sausage. The dark color of a gumbo comes from the "roux," the liquid base made from heating the cooking oil to a burning temperature and adding flour while stirring vigorously. This can be a dangerous and noisy venture, particularly if you have fire alarm sensors in the building, or in nearby buildings. I always set off all fire alarms in the house. I now achieve the same dark coloring by using the darkest oatmeal stout beer as the liquid base. Using dark beer instead of the authentic "roux" liquid would be a very Australian solution.

  The following is a non-authentic sausage gumbo recipe.

1 16-oz. can of red beans with 3 teaspoons of chili powder. If you can get the Taylor's Gourmet Chili package that includes a can of red beans and a small can of chili, get it.

3 12-oz. bottles of stout beer or 2 16 oz. cans of chicken broth.

1 8-oz. packet of New Orleans style red beans and rice - Zatarians and Uncle Ben make these.

1 16-oz. can of diced Italian style tomatoes.

1 can of Campbell's condensed soup. I prefer green peas and bacon.

1lb. of polish sausage - your preference - beef, pork or turkey.

6 slices of peppered bacon.

1/2 cup olive oil.

1 diced onion.

1 diced green pepper.

2 cups of diced celery.

1 teaspoon of creole seasoning, Zatarian's is great.

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce.

1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder.

Brown the peppered bacon in 1-inch pieces in the olive oil. Then lightly brown the sausage cut into 1/2- inch slices. Saute the onions.

Combine all the ingredients in a dutch oven and slow cook for at least two hours. Add more dark stout beer to keep a thick soup consistency. Serve in a soup bowl with a tablespoon of sour cream sprinkled with diced green onions. Adding a cup of diced green onions to the basic ingredients is a good addition.


The following is a history summary from a Gwynedd-Mercy College web site.

The Cajun and Creole foods of the city and south Louisiana are living examples of people adapting to their new surroundings and neighbors. Creole literally means “the first born in a new colony”. Therefore, the first-born children of the French, Spanish, German, and others who settled the area were considered Creole. However, most who consider themselves Creole today are descendants of  those exiled from Haiti and Santa Domingue following the Haitian slave revolt of 1804. Over ten thousand French, Free People of Color, and slaves came to New Orleans in 1809, doubling its population and adding another layer of culture that changed its food to a more Caribbean and French cuisine that included beans, rice, richer soups and sauces made with roux, the tomato, and slower cooking methods. This was combined with sausages from the Germans, spices and rice from the Spanish, and desserts and pastries from the Italians. 




If you want to feel close to the history of New Orleans, spend some time in the above-ground cemetery in the French Quarter. In my time in New Orleans I also became very aware of another reality, once you start exploring outside traditional tourist areas - the crime. In the 1980s I was serious but not necessarily good at marathon running. As I was about to head out late for a run one afternoon, a local friend gave me a lecture about the crime and his opinion that some of the police were a part of the crime problem. During the rest of the week I did a lot of miles in the confines of the roof top of the New Orleans Hilton.