La Mediatrice

This is a rich, bolstered broth to poach and serve seafood in. A gentle poach. With no actual measurements I am going to offer it in the short-hand style of my kitchen recipe books, chronological order:

dark roux

onions, peppers, celery, & garlic

tomato, bay leaf, allspice, cayenne, fish fumet, thyme

mushrooms, olive oil, red wine, salt

Four “sets” to the recipe, meaning it’s cooked in four stages and you allow time to pass between each stage. The proportions should come easily enough to you. When this is completed let simmer 30 minutes or so to bring all the flavors together as one. Poach some boudin blanc, fish, shrimp, & salt cured pork in this and serve it all with some basmati rice or home-made pasta. Finish with lemon zest and parsley.

Versatile. Adaptable. Immensely satisfying to make, to serve, and to eat; a real one-pot wonder that marches on in defiance to economic & social conditions, an ace in the sleeve to play when you think you have nothing in the larder to cook and all you need is:

Flour
Canola oil (or clarified butter)
Seasonings for the roux: onions, peppers, celery, bay leaf, garlic, herbs, & c.
Vegetables/Bones to make a stock with

As the old saying goes, first you make a roux. In a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven heat the oil, stir in about an equal amount of flour with a heavy duty whisk or wooden spoon and put the iron vessel into the 300-350 degree F oven. Check on it with a good stir every 20 minutes and get that dark brown color that has a distinctive toasted hazel nut aroma. Expect an hour to get this effect, maybe a bit more, but do not compromise on this step. At all. A blonde roux in a gumbo is a kind of betrayal that will ensure the sort of retribution that you do not want to tangle with. So, when the time is right, that perfect blissful moment when you think the roux could scorch the bottom of your vessel, on the cusp of oblivion and failure, you have certainly pushed this one to the edge, this is exactly when you add the vegetables that you chopped in between your roux-stirring ritual. Onions, bell peppers, celery, garlic. Put in some bay leaves, cayenne, fresh/dried thyme. The initial heat of the roux is going to caramelize the vegetables but continue cooking them if they haven’t softened up yet. While all this is going on you already have a big stock pot of bones (or vegetables) simmering. You are religiously skimming this aromatic broth of the unwanted debris, foam, oil, etc. Vegetable stocks hit their peak in short time, 45 minutes for example. Salt it. Taste it and see. Chicken/fowl bones can go 3-4 hours and denser, heavier bones of cow, pig, veal, or lamb go longer. Keep a spoon handy and monitor the development of flavor and do not go over that diabolical line where the flavor just seems to disappear and fade from over-cooking, lost forever. Right, now you have a vast horizon of boundless options before you, the real pleasure of constructing your own gumbo because now you have the two main components, the heavy-hitters: a strong and flavorful stock/broth and a dark, deeply flavor-rich roux of the highest order. Put these two together because they were made for each other. They love one another like you can only imagine. Simmer & skim, simmer & skim. Here are some ideas for giving this beautiful union a cohesive personality:

* The time-honored and well respected chicken & andouille combination. Rich chicken stock, browned bits of sausage, scallions, parsley.

* The equally loved seafood & okra gumbo. The okra does well with a bit of tomato and only needs like 30-45 minutes of stewing, retaining its vibrant color and desirable slime. Do this in a separate pot, more manageable. Don’t overcook the seafood, gumbo-lover.

* Gumbo Z’herbes. Jesus take the wheel, this one, when done in a certain way, is ethereal, glorious. In traditional terms, it can be meat-less but also does very well with a ham hock(cured/smoked) based stock with all the little bits of shredded ham making their way to the soup. Seven types of greens for good luck is what they say and you can go wild here: pepper-grass, dandelion, scallions, kale, chard, mustards, choy, all manner of herbs. Be gentle in the cooking of the greens, adding at the end, or do what I do and pour the gumbo base over a bowl of the thinly sliced raw greens tossed with some chile vinegar and sea salt. This gives a pleasant and fresh counterpoint to the heaviness & richness of the broth. Please do it now.

* Grilled beef & mushrooms. I’ve done this in restaurants to take advantage of the butchers trimmings. The oh-so-common beef tenderloin chain makes a good addition to a stock and the trimmings left from the filet portions are oiled, tossed with salt, fresh cracked black P, fresh thyme/oregano and grilled to a dark char but rare. Add to the gumbo at the end. Saute some mushrooms, nice and browned, crispy (notice a trend here?). Finish with grilled and chopped green onions, fresh oregano.

* Chorizo & escarole
* Boudin & mustard greens

Now, are you going to grace your wonderful gumbo with that plain-jane and limp-flavored rice that you usually get from uncaring cooks the world over? No, you’re going to soften some chopped onions in a pot with some butter, bay leaf, crushed red pepper flakes and then add the raw rice and coat the rice with this goodness and do the standard three-and-a-half or four to one ratio of water/broth to rice. Finish it with salt, more butter. File powder as a last touch, if you please.

You have some over-ripe and abundant tomatoes on your kitchen counter enthusiastically and quietly nodding for your attention. You are going to refer to the brine mixture in the Creole Mustard recipe below, strained first, applying it to your new cause with the addition of some diced jalapenos and probably a slight increase in the sugar quantity to off-set the acidity of the tomatoes. Simmer it all in your favorite steel plated copper pot, maybe add a bit of canned whole tomato that you squish up with your hands, for less than an hour. Taste & adjust: sweet, spicy, sour, acidic. Store and keep it as you would the mustard and serve it with some of your home-made Black-strap Molasses Bread.

The vinegar solution that follows is the same as the pickling brine I use for pickled pork, pickled onions, pickled everything. As always, taste as you go along and find that sweet spot where all the prime flavors stand on equal ground; sweet, sour, acidic, salty, spicy. Use the recipe as a guide and follow/develop your palette. That’s what I’ve been doing, as this is the first time I’ve written down this recipe.

2 c. white vinegar
2 c. water
one half ‘o cup of sugar
one huge TB salt
2 toes crushed garlic
a few slices of onion & celery
generous pinches of the following:
chile flakes
coriander seeds
bay laurel
grated fresh horseradish
black peppercorns
clove
celery seeds
dill seeds

Method:

Simmer all of this together until you notice the bubbles becoming smaller, about 30 minutes. This is an important step to consider because this transformation of the sugar through reduction is going to give your mustard a certain sheen and viscosity that is desirable to you. At this point, remove the pot of brine from the fire and pour it through a strainer into a bowl of ground up dark mustard seeds, about one cup, which you cleverly grounded up earlier in an electric grinder generally used for coffee beans. The high temperature of the brine on the mustard seeds is going to contribute greatly to the overall flavor of your mustard, as will the aging you are going to put on this mustard: after you mix it well to get a smooth paste, keep it in a glass jar with lid, sit out at room temperature overnight and then leave it in your fridge to mature and mellow. After a week it is fit for your consumption and it only gets better the next week. Prepared and kept this way, I have never known mustard to turn bad. Only the mustard-maker.

Post-script: This recipe should be made in a higher quantity since the shelf life is so great so feel at ease to scale it up and be rich in Creole Mustard.

This is a looser variation of Remoulade Sauce. For a denser and more cohesive sauce prepare this in a Robot Coupe/food processor using one whole skinned & seeded lemon as a binding agent. But, reserve the pickled vegetables for fine dicing and fold into the sauce after it is emulsified.

In a large bowl, whisk together and make a vinaigrette:

1/4c shrimp boil broth
1/4c home-made creole mustard
juice of one lemon
1/2c white vinegar
1TB tomato jam/marmalade
1 c oil, canola or something of a neutral flavor

grated fresh horseradish
celery, diced
parsley, chopped
garlic, minced
green onions, sliced
some pickled vegetables from summer: onion, radish,
mirliton, & c.

Now adjust the seasoning with salt, paprika, lemon.

Ingredients:

2 parts each:
coriander seeds
mustard seeds
dill seeds

1 part each:
celery seeds
whole cloves
whole allspice
black peppercorns
dried red chilies

1 hand-full of bay leaves
a few quartered yellow onions
a few lemons & oranges, quartered
a generous and seemingly diabolical amount of salt

Method:
In a large pot mix together about one cup of the seasoning blend with one gallon of fresh cold water. With a spoon taste the broth and adjust the flavors accordingly, now and later on before you add the goods, keeping in mind that it has to be very strong: The saltiness countering the sweet/sourness of the citrus, the various seasonings being in balance. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes. Strain out the seasonings and return the flavored liquid to the pot; Or, just keep the seasoning mix bundled up in cheese cloth. Return to a hard boil and add some whole shrimp. Remove them from the pot just as the liquid is returning to a boil. Now the pot is seasoned wonderfully with the spices, the citrus and the shrimp. Boil potatoes, corn, artichoke, eggs. Andouille, cabbage, green onion heads..all are great additions. I have found it beneficial to hold the boiled goodies in a little bit of the boiling broth. Keeps everything moist and flavorful. So,save some of the boiling liquid to make remoulade sauce..