Oyster Gumbo
Put a Spanish onion in 4 tablespoonfuls olive oil, and cook till tender and slightly brown. Add 1 tablespoonful flour, 1 sweet chili peeled and chopped fine, and 1 pint okra. Cover for fifteen minutes, then add 100 drained oysters; let this come quickly to a boil, put in 1 tablespoonful filee, turn into soup tureen, and serve with nicely boiled rice.
A Creole-style oyster gumbo built on an oil-and-flour roux rather than butter, and thickened at the last moment with filé. It is a fast dish once the okra is in, and the final step decides whether it succeeds.
- Filé must not boilFilé is powdered dried sassafras leaf. Stir it in with the pot off the heat and serve at once; if it boils it turns the gumbo stringy and ropy, which cannot be corrected.
- The oystersOne hundred shucked oysters is roughly two to three quarts of meats, enough for ten to twelve bowls. Scale to about 8-10 oysters per serving. Bringing them "quickly to a boil" means barely that: they are done when the edges ruffle, a minute or two, and longer makes them rubbery.
- LiquidThe only moisture here comes from the oysters, the okra and the onion, so the result is closer to a thick stew than a soup. Reserve the liquor you drained off the oysters and add it, or a light fish or chicken stock, to bring it to the consistency you want before the filé goes in.
- Sweet chiliThis means a mild fresh pepper, not a hot one. A red bell pepper or a poblano, peeled if you like by charring and rubbing off the skin, is the modern equivalent.
- OkraA pint of okra is roughly half a pound, sliced into rounds. Fresh is best; frozen sliced okra works and needs no thawing. The fifteen minutes covered is what cooks out the raw taste and lets the okra do its own thickening.
- The rouxA single tablespoon of flour in 4 tablespoons of oil is a very loose roux, meant for flavor rather than body. Let it cook a couple of minutes with the onion before the okra goes in so the flour loses its raw edge.
- Spanish onionA large, mild onion, still sold under that name. One good-sized one, chopped, is intended.
- ServingTraditional service is a mound of plain long-grain rice in the bowl with the gumbo ladled around it, not rice stirred through the pot.