I modified my mother's chicken and sausage gumbo recipe to make it gluten-free. Good gumbo is hard to find for my friend with a wheat allergy. The wheat flour roux is the key ingredient for any gumbo. After experimenting with a few gluten-free alternatives, I find that a light brown millet flour roux thickens the gumbo and gives an excellent taste nearly equal to wheat flour. Most people won't notice the difference.
Ingredients
- whole chicken: 1 piece (3 pound, to taste)
- water: 6 cups (or more if needed)
- millet flour: 1 cup
- vegetable oil: 0.75 cup
- white onion: 1 piece (chopped)
- green bell pepper: 1 piece (chopped)
- garlic: 3 clove (chopped)
- andouille sausage: 1 pound (cut into bite-size pieces)
- stalks celery: 3 piece (chopped)
- green onion: 0.5 cup (chopped)
- bay leaves: 3 piece
- salt: 2 tsp
- thyme: 0.25 tsp (dried)
- cayenne pepper: 0.25 tsp
- file powder: 1 Tbsp
Metric Conversion
Stages of cooking
-
Place chicken in a 6- to 8-quart stockpot and pour in enough water to completely cover the chicken; bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until chicken is no longer pink at the bone and juices run clear, about 1 hour. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone should read 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).
-
Remove chicken from water and place on a work surface to cool, retaining the resulting chicken stock in the stockpot.
-
Cook and stir millet flour and vegetable oil together in a large frying pan or skillet over medium heat until roux is smooth and slightly darker than peanut butter, about 10 minutes.
-
Mix onion, green bell pepper, and garlic into roux; cook and stir over low heat until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer onion-roux mixture to stockpot with chicken stock.
-
Bring chicken stock mixture to a simmer over medium heat; add andouille sausage, celery, green onion, bay leaves, salt, thyme, and cayenne pepper and simmer for 1 hour.
-
Remove skin from cooked chicken and discard. Pull meat from the bones and chop into bite-size pieces; discard carcass. Add chicken meat to broth mixture and simmer until chicken is heated through, 5 to 10 minutes.
-
Remove stockpot from heat, stir file powder into gumbo, and remove and discard bay leaves.
