Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 31

GUMBO
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
2 medium green bell peppers, diced
2 large onions, diced
4 medium celery ribs, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried thyme leaves
2 cups fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
3-1/2 cups chicken broth
1-1/2 cups water, if necessary
1 pound andouille sausage, smoked hot links or kielbasa
sausage, chopped
1 pound fresh okra, sliced
4 teaspoons gumbo filé powder
1 pound medium shrimp, cleaned, deveined
Steamed rice, for serving
These recipes appear in " Miss
Lucy Brown's Recipe for Living
A Good Life. " She adapted them
from ones she collected through
the years from newspapers,
magazines and other sources.
" It's not a cookbook, " she insists, " although the illustrator
used cooking on the cover. "
It is, she says, an inspirational guide based on her life experiences
to help women prosper in health and well-being. Even
so, each chapter ends with a recipe: " Family is Most Important "
ends with Brunswick stew; " Respecting People Who Live in the
House With You " with gumbo; and " Show Love With What You
Do " with chewy cake.
Some of the sisters' shared experiences, as Brown writes in
the book, come from hard living.
" We all came from slavery, " she says of their ancestors.
Brown, who grew up sharecropping, first learned to cook
by watching the woman she and her mother sharecropped for
teaching her mother how to measure flour to make biscuits.
Fast-forward five or six decades, and the sisters each now
own their own farms. Collins and her husband sell pecans,
chewy cakes and pecan pies commercially. Brown says she had
to stop gardening because the last time she worked the earth " it
just dogged me out too much. "
There's something, though, the sisters will never tire of
doing: " We cook, and we eat, " Collins says.
Tom Oder is a freelance writer who lives in Atlanta.
Put chicken breasts in a pot, cover them with water
and put a lid on the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to
a simmer and cook until the chicken is cooked through.
Remove chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside to
cool. When cool, cut chicken into 1-inch cubes. Reserve
the cooking water for later use.
To make the roux: In a separate pot on low heat, mix
the vegetable oil, butter and flour, and cook, stirring, over
low heat until the color is a light brown.
To the roux, add the peppers, onions, celery, garlic,
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, bay leaves, thyme, corn,
crushed tomatoes and chicken broth. Stir well, bring to a
boil, then reduce to a simmer.
When the vegetables are soft, add the chicken to the
mixture. If the gumbo is too thick, add all or part of the
1-1/2 cups water to thin the consistency.
In a separate skillet over medium heat, brown the
sausage. Add it to the gumbo and continue to simmer for
30 minutes. Add okra and simmer for 20 more minutes, or
until almost done.
After adding the okra, ladle 1-1/2 cups of leftover
broth from cooking the chicken into a mixing bowl and
whisk in filé powder until well-blended. Add the filé
mixture to the gumbo and stir well. Finally, add shrimp
and cook until shrimp are just pink, approximately 3-5
minutes. Stir the gumbo until all ingredients are
thoroughly mixed.
While the gumbo is simmering, steam the rice
according to package instructions. Serve gumbo in
bowls over steamed rice. Serves 10-12.
MORE
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