Spicy Seafood Gumbo

As New Englanders, seafood stews are pretty common around here.  Hell, we shared a creamy seafood chowder recipe just a few weeks ago.  However, our chowders aren’t necessarily spicy, so this gumbo is pretty much as far from a chowder as you could get.

A few weeks ago, the Tart’s mother came up for a quick visit for a bridal shower.  She stayed with us for a weekend and had one request:  seafood.  Mom-Tart’s other request?  To spend some time with some family that she hadn’t seen for nearly a year.

So we did the best of both worlds, and had the family over for a seafood bonanza in the form of a spicy seafood-packed gumbo.  We needed a meal that would feed a bunch of seafood lovers, and something that everyone would enjoy.  And while it wasn’t something that was required, we wanted to cook something that we could share with y’all.

So what’s in it?

There were some things that we needed to consider with this recipe, since we were cooking for six people.  We started by deciding what sort of meat and seafood we wanted in our gumbo.  Shrimp was a given, as was sausage.  The Beard won’t touch clams, but was willing to give mussels a shot because he could just pull the whole shell out of his bowl if he didn’t like them.  We added some crab meat, because we wanted something that wasn’t a fish.  We couldn’t go too crazy with the spice, because not everyone likes the heat that we like with our food.  In flagrant disregard for its Cajun roots, our gumbo doesn’t include okra or the Holy Trinity of onions, celery, and pepper, and the veggies that we did use were pureed, giving the gumbo an almost creamy consistency.  

When it came to the meat, we used a spicy turkey kielbasa for our gumbo but it’s entirely in your hands, just as you can feel free to change up what seafood you want to add in addition to the shrimp.  The mussels were a great addition, just make certain that they are cooked properly before serving – don’t eat any that don’t open up.  Since the crab we used was canned and pretty much shredded, it just added to the thickness of the gumbo.  

Making It

This gumbo took a while to prepare, but most of that time was spent prepping the shrimp.  You want to be sure to get raw shrimp, and you want them to at least have their tails and legs on them.  The Tart and her mom spent about 45 minutes in the kitchen picking the various appendages off of 4 lbs of cold shrimp.  We’ll call it a bonding experience.  However, when those shrimp shells were boiled for a stock, that stock made all the numb fingers worth it.  You could probably cheat and buy some ready made stock, but trust me, the stock makes the gumbo.  

All told, this recipe makes up about 5 quarts of gumbo, which was way more than enough to feed our family.  As you can see by the pictures, we served it up with some cooked white rice, just dropping a large scoop into the middle of the bowl before serving.  The leftovers were frozen in quart containers, enough for a quick dinner for the two of us after late work shifts.

5 from 4 votes

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Seafood Gumbo

A thick, spicy gumbo loaded with seafood in every spoonful – get your big spoons out, you’re going to need them.

Course Dinner

Cuisine American

Keyword crab, gumbo, mussells, seafood, shrimp, spicy

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Servings 5 quarts

Ingredients

• 1 lb crab meat
• 4 lbs medium shrimp raw with tails
• 1 lb turkey sausage sliced thin
• 2 onions diced or pureed
• 2 tbsps flour
• 4 tbsps butter divided
• 1 1/2 tbsps minced garlic
• 1 cup chopped green onions divided
• 2 tsps salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp sriracha sauce
• 1 can (14.5 oz) whole tomatoes chopped, diced, or pureed
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 1 tsp fresh thyme chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsely chopped
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 lbs fresh mussels

Instructions

1. Prepare your shrimp by peeling off their shells and removing their tail bits heads, saving the shells and heads.  Refrigerate your shrimp.  Add 8 cups of water and a generous pinch of salt to a large stockpot with the shrimp shells, tails, and heads, then bring to a boil over high heat.  Lower heat and simmer, partially covered, for an hour.  Let the stock cool, then strain the shells from it, saving the stock in a large bowl for later.

2. Heat 1 tbsp butter in the stock pot, then add the sausage.  Saute the sausage until it has browned, about 8 minutes.  Remove the sausage from the stockpot and set aside.

3. Heat 3 tbsps butter in the stockpot over high heat.  Add the flour and reduce heat to medium.  Cook flour and butter, stirring constantly, until roux has become medium-dark brown in color.  Add your onions to the stockpot and saute until they soften, about 4-5 minutes (we nearly pureed ours, so it didn’t take long).  Add the garlic and half of the green onion and saute for another 3 minutes.  Next, add the tomato paste, thyme, salt, sriracha, chili powder, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce to the pot, stirring to combine.  

4. Stir in the canned tomatoes that you have prepared how you like them – we ran ours through the food processor, liquid and all.  You could also chop or dice them, saving their liquid.  Gradually stir in the shrimp stock, then add the sausage.  Bring pot to a boil once more, cover and reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 30 minutes.
   

5. Add your shrimp, crab, and mussels to the pot.  Bring pot back up to to a boil and simmer for an additional 15 minutes.  Stir in your green onion and serve.

Recipe Notes

We served this with plain white rice that we’d cooked up while the gumbo was in it’s final simmering stage – just dump a scoop into your bowl and dig in.

I know that purists will argue that this isn’t a true gumbo because it doesn’t contain okra, and it doesn’t have the typical Cajun holy trinity of onion, celery and pepper.  That’s ok.  Call this a seafood stew if it makes you feel better.

Modified from a recipe found on MyRecipes.

The Tart

The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things.  She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.