Chicken and Prawn Gumbo

Ingredients

• 600 g boneless chicken thighs, in chunks
• 400 g raw prawns, peeled
• 200 g andouille or cooking chorizo, sliced
• 250 g okra, in thick slices
• 80 g plain flour
• 100 ml vegetable oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 3 celery sticks, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tbsp cajun seasoning
• 1.2 litres hot chicken stock
• 3 bay leaves
• 6 spring onions, sliced
• 300 g long grain rice, to serve

Method

1. Render the sausage

   Brown the chorizo in the pan and lift it out, leaving the fat behind. Add oil to make up the 100 ml you need for the roux.

   6 min

2. Make a dark roux

   Stir the flour into the oil and cook over a medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it goes from blond through peanut butter to the colour of milk chocolate — 30 to 40 minutes. Do not stop stirring and do not rush it: a burnt roux is bitter and there is no rescue, you start again.

   35 min

3. Stop it with the trinity

   Tip the onion, pepper and celery straight into the hot roux. They cool it instantly and stop it cooking further, which is exactly why they go in all at once. Add the garlic and cajun seasoning.

   8 min

4. Build the stew

   Whisk in the hot stock a ladle at a time so the roux does not seize, then add the chicken, chorizo and bay, and simmer gently for 45 minutes.

   45 min

5. Okra to thicken

   Add the okra and cook 15 minutes more. It releases the mucilage that gives gumbo its body — slicing it thick and adding it late keeps that useful rather than slimy.

   15 min

6. Prawns last

   Slide in the prawns and cook 3 minutes only, then take it off the heat. Scatter the spring onions and serve over rice with the gumbo ladled around it.

   3 min