I definitely took the most liberty with my food today, straying quite a bit from Chef Brown's demo. Come on...we had gumbo! And I'm from New Orleans. Chef Brown made it probably the more traditional way, but I hate to see both shrimp and sausage just cooked in some boiling liquid when everyone knows they taste better when you brown them. So I sauteed both to give them some color, and a whole lot of flavor. While I was at it, I also pan fried my okra with a little dusting of flour on it, so I used the gumbo file and the roux as my thickening agent. My actual gumbo itself was probably pretty plain. It just had the roux, the trinity and the spices basically. Chef Brown asked if I darkened my gumbo with something at the end, but I told him I just took the roux really dark at the beginning. He said he was surprised I was able to get it that dark without a burnt flavor, but I know that a true gumbo should have a dark roux, beyond brown. He did say that the gumbo could use a little salt, and to coat my shrimp with the gumbo next time, but I don't know...I didn't sautee beautiful shrimp just to cover it up in sauce!
Next we have the Hungarian Goulash served over spaetzle. I've never had any of these things before, but braising the beef reminded me of how my mom taught me to do ribs...long and slow. Chef Brown said the spatezle was nice and that he noticed the amount of nutmeg I used in it...he liked that. I've always heard that once you taste the nutmeg...you have eggnog. But I prefer hearing it his way. The amount of butter I finished the spaetzle in though, well, you can see for yourself. He also said the meat came out perfectly tender, and the sauce tasted delicious. However, I didn't find the same paprika flavor in mine as he had in his...which I really liked. Next time, I'll have to up the amount of paprika I used. Not having ever used paprika before substantially, maybe I just need a bit more of a push. I sure wasn't shy when it came to those caraway seeds though, when I dumped a ton of them in. I still don't know what they taste like though, on their own. I'll have to remember to try those tomorrow. Also tomorrow, we finish our Coq au Vin!
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