Creole Redfish Gumbo

Recipe from Jordan Ruiz

Adapted by Brett Anderson

Published January 8, 2019

  • Sara Essex Bradley for The New York Times
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
About 2¼ hours
Rating
4(105)
Comments
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Jordan Ruiz cooks a version of the seafood gumbo his mother and grandmother made when he was growing up in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood. It contains fin fish, which is rarely seen in restaurants in New Orleans, where seafood gumbos tend to contain shrimp and crab. Gumbo filé, made of dried and ground sassafras leaves, is used both as a thickening agent and for its flavor. Mr. Ruiz’s gumbo can be found at the Munch Factory, the New Orleans restaurant he owns with his wife, Alexis. —Brett Anderson

Featured in: Gumbo, the Classic New Orleans Dish, Is Dead. Long Live Gumbo.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 servings

FOR THE ROUX

  • 1 ½ cups vegetable or canola oil

  • 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

FOR THE GUMBO

  • 1 large yellow or white onion, chopped

  • 1 cup chopped green bell pepper

  • 1 cup chopped celery

  • ⅓ cup chopped garlic

  • 3 quarts shrimp stock or seafood stock

  • 1 pound small blue crabs, or substitute ½ pound fresh lump crab meat

  • ¼ cup gumbo filé powder

  • 6 dried bay leaves

  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt

  • 1 tablespoon fresh or dried thyme

  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

  • 1 tablespoon ground cayenne, or to taste

  • 2 pounds small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed

  • 1 ½ pounds redfish, black drum or other medium-firm, white-flesh fish fillets (such as sea bass or haddock), skin removed, cut into bite-size pieces

  • 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning (such as Tony Chachere’s)

  • 2 cups freshly shucked oysters with their juices, or substitute 1 (16-ounce) container shucked oysters

  • 1 teaspoon hot sauce (such as Tabasco)

  • Cooked white rice, for serving

  • ½ cup chopped scallions, for serving

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Prepare the roux: In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high until it’s just shy of smoking. Slowly shake the flour into the oil, whisking until smooth. Reduce the heat to medium and continue whisking until the roux is a deep dark brown, 20 to 30 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary to prevent burning.

  2. Step 2

    Using a wooden spoon, stir in the onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic. Cook another 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Step 3

    Stir in the stock. Bring to a boil and add the crabs (if using whole blue crabs), gumbo filé, bay leaves, salt, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and cayenne. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the flavors have melded, skimming off any foam or skin on the surface, about 1 hour.

  4. Step 4

    Toss the shrimp and fish with the Creole seasoning and stir into gumbo, along with the oysters and crab meat (if using). Simmer until the shrimp and fish are cooked, about 10 minutes. Add the hot sauce. Taste and season with more salt and hot sauce if necessary. Divide among soup bowls and top with rice and scallions.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
105 user ratings
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Comments

Hector

Baking the ingredients of the roux in a 375 F oven saves a lot of stirring and standing by the pot. Stir once every ten minutes, then every five as it gets closer to the color you want. Enjoy!

Jim

Re. cooking the file vs adding it at the end, to each his own. In the 40 years I have been making gumbo, I have always added the file early in the process as a flavoring rather than a thickening ingredient. There remains an undertone of gumbo orthodoxy but this dish is made by so many people, with all their individual preferences, that there really isn’t a right way.

Kay Gabbert

After 40 years of burning myself on hot cooking oil and hurting my wrist from constant stirring, I started using this method. So easy, and I find that it’s great for controlling the final result. You can stop when the roux is exactly as dark as you like.

Bryan R

As usual the picture looks nothing like the dish. Too much food styling going on in Times cooking section. Other than that the recipe was excellent and a very good example of a traditional Cajun gumbo.

B

My roux never gets this dark. An old, now deceased, family friend from New Orleans who made the best seafood gumbo I’ve ever had, his roux was almost black. Any tips?

Genifer Johnson

More authentic than others I've seen.

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Credits

Adapted from Jordan Ruiz, the Munch Factory, New Orleans

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