This was a first for me...I'd never made Chicken Gumbo before. A friend's husband used to make an excellent gumbo so I at least had something to compare my attempt with!
The okra is really expensive if you buy it at a supermarket - the recipe calls for more than 200g. It comes in 125g bags...I only bought one because it's not cheap and I'm not sure of the children will like it.
The recipe follows pretty much in the same vein as previous slow cooker recipes; brown the meat, fry the veg, add the stock, bring to the boil, add to cooking pot.... This time however, after the initial sauteing, you only add half the veg. The other half is added near the end of the cooking. I like this method because it means more of the crunch, colour and nutrients are preserved in the veg that has not been cooked for 3 hours! Slow cooking is great for meat but can render vegetables tasteless.
As I was adding the 3 pints of stock it seemed a lot...my large slow cooker was almost full to the brim! Gumbo is supposed to be soupy, right? I was worried it was going to boil over but it was fine.
The result : a colourful, vibrant, hot (but not too spicy) and very tasty dish. I served this with wholegrain basmati rice.
We ate most of the chicken and vegetables at the first sitiing and there was LOADS of delicious juice left over. I shredded the remaining chicken and added some of the rice and heated it up the next day as soup. We got an extra 3 servings out of this!
The recipe is from the book Slow Cooker (Quick and Easy, Proven Recipes Series)
I have tried the following slow cooker recipes from the book:
Looks yummy. Wonder if you could sub the meat for tofu without killing the flavor too much. hmmm, after taking a look at your Poached Pears post, "Slow Cooker" def looks like a book worth checking out.
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