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you welcome in Clubhouse eatsWhere we celebrate the tastiest food and drinks in the game. I hope you have brought your appetite.
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In the Deep South, especially in and around the Big Easy, cooks are judged by a unique dish—gumbo. Just ask Aaron Piccarella, executive chef at TPC Louisiana, who previously served as the kitchen chef at Desi Vega’s Steakhouse in downtown New Orleans. “It’s one of those dishes that you focus on,” he says.
At TPC Louisiana, Chef Picarella will make different types of gumbo throughout the year: chicken and andouille sausage; duck and anouille sausage; and seafood. He’ll occasionally whip up a pot of Gumbo Yaya, which includes chicken, shrimp, crab, clams, and lobster. Like the members’ favorite seafood group, this one is only made during lobster season.
In a bowl of okra, the proteins might steal most of the spotlight, but Chef Piccarella admits it’s the balance of flavors from all the ingredients that matters most. Well, that’s bamboo rose. “The roux is what makes okra,” he explains. “This is what people judge okra.”
As the chef explains, the best roux is one that’s dark, but it takes patience to slowly make a roux to that desired shade. According to Piccarella, many chefs use melted butter when making roux, but he prefers using oil, since it provides a higher smoking point which exhibits a pleasantly nutty flavor when the roux darkens. “You definitely focus as much time on that roux as you do on the soup itself,” he says. “You really don’t take away from it at all—you’re constantly stirring it up. The care you put into your roux definitely shines through when you’re done with the gumbo.”
Below, Chef Piccarella shares a slightly modified recipe for seafood gumbo:
TPC Louisiana’s famous Seafood Gumbo
ingredients
1 shrimp (30-40 lbs.) peeled and deveined
1 pound of mixed crab meat
2 dozen oysters with liquid
8 oz. Andouille sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 liters of seafood broth
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped fresh okra
Half a cup of vegetable oil
4 tsp. precise
1 tbsp. gumbo file
1 tbsp. red pepper
A cup of chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tbsp. zaatar
Half a cup of finely chopped green onions
to prepare
Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over moderate heat, then add the flour to make a roux, stirring frequently, until the mixture is the color of peanut butter.
Add the onion and okra and cook over moderate heat until the vegetables have wilted (about 4 minutes).
In a 5-quart saucepan, mix shrimp and sausage. Then add the vegetable mixture, seafood broth, okra cabbage, paprika, and salt and bring to a boil over medium heat. cook 30 minutes or until gravy reaches desired consistency.
Add crab meat and clams with liquid, parsley, garlic and thyme. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for another 10 minutes or so.
To serve, pour over steamed white rice and garnish with green onions.