Cookin again

[Bedrockgames]

My Mom has issued me a cooking challenge. She didn't phrase it that way, but that's he substance of what she did,

A few weeks ago, I made a pretty killer chicken & sausage gumbo. Prior to that, I had made a dish that was served over penne pasta, and we had leftover pasta. Well, in the interest of frugality, my parents ate some of the gumbo over penne instead of rice (which I wound up killing almost all by my lonesome).

They really liked it. The gumbo was thick enough that it really stuck to that penne. Dad even added some cheese to his one evening.

So the challenge is this: reimagine the chicken & sausage gumbo as a pasta dish. Now, that might not sound difficult, but consider that gumbo is usually made in 10-18qt batches, with multiple chicken thighs and 2 different sausages. In contrast, a pasta sauce may only be a quart, and certainly won't contain 6lbs+ of meat. I'm going to have to radically alter ingredient & seasoning ratios to get this to work. I might cheat a bit and make it as a pasta casserole. Gumbosagña?

There are no victors in a cooking contest with your mom.

I know squat about gumbo but actually on the pasta sauce front, we always tended to make sauce in very large pots, with several pounds of meat. I've never made red sauce using a small quart pan unless I was in a rush, or I already had the sauce made and was just reheating for a single serving of pasta. So if that is how gumbo is done, you can probably pull of a good pasta-gumbo dish using similar amounts of ingredients. Basically real sauce at home is made almost like a meat based soup, where the flavor needs to stew in there over several hours (preferably with the bones in). Also chicken and sausage is a very common pasta sauce combination (my aunt made sauce strictly with chicken and italian sausage). I'd maybe do Italian pork sausage with chicken thighs and legs. Do a big with about four thighs and a fair amount of sausage. You might want to put the chicken in first, as the sausage doesn't take that long to get into the sauce but the chicken needs more time. You might consider spicing it with lots of crushed red pepper for heat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thanks for the hints!

The S/G gumbo used- as I recall- either 4 or 8 thighs and 2lbs each of a smoked sausage and a homemade Louisiana hot sausage, both sliced into medallions. All the meat was pan browned for flavor, including the deglazing step.

The thing is, I'd want to cook it down to thicken it to a proper sauce consistency. My gumbo is thick...for a soup. As a sauce, it would still be pretty thin. Cooking down that much liquid would be extremely time consuming, hence my desire to start from a smaller volume starting point.

And that cooking-down step also introduces the risk of overseasoning. Gumbo has a kick to it. The Louisiana hot sausage packs a punch, and the black pepper and cayenne added in the broth do as well. If I cook the S/G gumbo in the regular amount and try to cook it down, suddenly, the sauce could become inhumane.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Thanks for the hints!

The S/G gumbo used- as I recall- either 4 or 8 thighs and 2lbs each of a smoked sausage and a homemade Louisiana hot sausage, both sliced into medallions. All the meat was pan browned for flavor, including the deglazing step.

The thing is, I'd want to cook it down to thicken it to a proper sauce consistency. My gumbo is thick...for a soup. As a sauce, it would still be pretty thin. Cooking down that much liquid would be extremely time consuming, hence my desire to start from a smaller volume starting point.

And that cooking-down step also introduces the risk of overseasoning. Gumbo has a kick to it. The Louisiana hot sausage packs a punch, and the black pepper and cayenne added in the broth do as well. If I cook the S/G gumbo in the regular amount and try to cook it down, suddenly, the sauce could become inhumane.

Red sauce can be thin too. Most people get it thick with tomato paste but my mom never used that stuff (she just used crushed tomatoes). With just crushed tomatoes, half cup of olive oil or so and all the juices from the meat it can be pretty thin. Not soup thin but thinner than you encounter at a restaurant or in a jar.

With thin sauce the trick is just to make sure you don't ladle in too much so the pasta is swimming (just get enough for a coating then lay on the meats). If you like you can ladle some in a seperate pan and finish up the pasta in there.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I do like cooking the sauce into the pasta, sometimes. I think in this case, it might be advantageous.

But again, don't think baking that many quarts is a good idea!

There's also the question of my Dad's idea of including cheese. THAT culinary curveball was unexpected...especially since it was Kraft American singles. They have their place in my kitchen, and of course, just because a cheese is "better", doesn't mean it will work better in the application in question. But...why not Parmesan? Gouda? Is there actually a cheese that would work for most palates?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I do like cooking the sauce into the pasta, sometimes. I think in this case, it might be advantageous.

But again, don't think baking that many quarts is a good idea!

There's also the question of my Dad's idea of including cheese. THAT culinary curveball was unexpected...especially since it was Kraft American singles. They have their place in my kitchen, and of course, just because a cheese is "better", doesn't mean it will work better in the application in question. But...why not Parmesan? Gouda? Is there actually a cheese that would work for most palates?

I don't know if you are going for the italian seasoning or the gumbo seasoning, but if Italian, I'd use Parmesan grated into the sauce for flavor and a mozzarella on it once it is cooked if you want melted cheese to go with the dish. But if you are flavoring it like a gumbo, I think you'd want to pick some different cheeses.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Definitely gumbo...which is why my Dad's cheese adventure flummoxed me. I'm having trouble conceptualizing something that works with peppers, garlic, filé, onion, bay leaf, etc... Who knows, maybe he got it right the first time? Kraft 'Murican?

It just makes my brain hurt.

Hmmm...maybe take inspiration from commercial French Onion Soup recipes- Provelone, Swiss, Asiago, Mozzarella...

 

[Bedrockgames]

Definitely gumbo...which is why my Dad's cheese adventure flummoxed me. I'm having trouble conceptualizing something that works with peppers, garlic, filé, onion, bay leaf, etc... Who knows, maybe he got it right the first time? Kraft 'Murican?

It just makes my brain hurt.

Hmmm...maybe take inspiration from commercial French Onion Soup recipes- Provelone, Swiss, Asiago, Mozzarella...

There are a lot of italian pasta and bean soups that might work well with the flavors you are thinking of doing. That is another option

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

The first cheese that popped into my head was Swiss. I'd imagine that would go well with a gumbo pasta.


For dinner t'other night I tossed some unseasoned ground pork patties onto the grill. I decided to get a bit creative. I dug through the cupboards to see what I could come up with, and stirred chipotle tabasco, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder into molasses and slathered it onto my pork burgers.

I was Very Happy with the results. I think I'm gonna try it on grilled bacon next.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That sounds pretty tasty...sweet & hot, right?

 

[RangerWickett]

Pardon my slight non sequitur, but I like making schnitzel, and when I was in Germany last year I had some great schnitzel where the breading was not clinging to the meat, but instead hung off in big crisp flakes, so there were pockets of air between the breading and meat.

When I cook at home, I usually end up with something that's just your basic meat wrapped in breading. Does anyone know how to make the breading do the fancier thing? Is it an issue of the type of breadcrumbs? The oil? The heat?