Chicken gumbo

I'm really enjoying cooking New Orleans and Cajun food at the moment, I love the way it uses ingredients and ideas from so many different styles of cooking and so far, it's mainly ended up tasting great.  This is my take on Gumbo, there are as many recipes as there are cooks so if you like you can leave your own ideas as a comment :)

This was inspired after seeing my friends play some blues in Camden Town at the blues kitchen and I had Gumbo there, which was very good, so I had to find a way to cook my own.  Hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients

4 chicken legs

Cayenne pepper

Salt and black pepper

100ml oil

100g flour

2 onions, finely chopped

2 red peppers, finely chopped

2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

1 litre chicken stock, at room temperature

Bay leaf

200g okra, chopped

200g smoked sausage, thinly sliced

Pinch or dried thyme

1 sweet potato peeled and cut into 5mm dice

A handful of sweetcorn, frozen

A bunch of spring onions, peeled and chopped finely

Rice, to serve

Sweet dumplings

Method

Remove the skin from the chicken and dust with salt, black and cayenne pepper. Leave to sit for at least half an hour (you can prepare the rest of the ingredients while you're waiting).

Set the flour, onion, pepper, celery and stock out beside the stove. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based pot over a medium-high heat and then brown the chicken well, in batches if necessary. Set aside.  Turn the heat down slightly and scrape any bits off the bottom of the pan, then stir in the flour. Stir over a medium-low heat until it reaches a deep, rich brown colour, about the shade of melted milk chocolate. (the darker it is, the more bitter the flavour.)

Add the onion, pepper and celery and cook, stirring, for a few minutes until softened.  Gradually stir in the stock, little by little, until you have a smooth sauce, scraping the bottom of the pot as you do so.

Add the chicken back into the pot, along with the bay leaf and thyme, and bring to a simmer. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer for an hour and a half.

Add the sweet potato, okra, sweetcorn and sausage, stir, replace the lid and simmer for a further 45 minutes.  Remove the chicken (keeping the pot on the heat) and, when cool enough to handle, strip the meat from the bones and put it back into the pot, along with the Tabasco sauce and salt and pepper to taste.