Chicken and Sausage gumbo

[OLS]

Originally Posted by Darrell

The Safeway by me never has whole chickens. Just hens.

I'll check and see if there are any Foster Farms packs like you mentioned.

For a minute I was thinking, FINE, hens. But you mean game hens I guess, not Baking hens. Man, you guys in California say it's so great, but you can't get a whole fryer in the store? What is this, Russia?

I like the thickening of the Okra, it JUST borders on slimy or too gelatinous,but I like the thickening and the taste. But you can easily make this dish without okra, in fact if I was wanting to DO that, I would make a bit more roux. How much roux you use obviously dictates whether or not you get a 'floury' character to your base for the price of it's thickening. But a properly proportioned roux should not make a dish 'floury'. But without the okra, you might need to put a bit more roux, or add a half teaspoon of corn starch in the end. Give it some body. Real chicken and sausage gumbo tend to be more of a soup, kinda thin. That's why a really good sausage is paramount. Chiken and kielbasa with a watery base is not too appetizing.

Good luck to all. Like the man said, DO NOT ruin 30-40-50 bucks worth of ingredients for 50 cents worth of ROUX. I can remember burning a roux for my fellow servicemen in NC...50 bucks worth of seafood that I could have saved, but I just dumped it into a burnt roux, and spent 4 months apologizing for my idiotic mistake.

[T.G]

Originally Posted by OLS

For a minute I was thinking, FINE, hens. But you mean game hens I guess, not Baking hens. Man, you guys in California say it's so great, but you can't get a whole fryer in the store? What is this, Russia?

No, just Campbell.

I've never had a problem finding whole fryers, even when I lived closer to where D. lives. Must just be the stores in his vicinity.

One of the markets here, I can even pick from commerical (Foster Farms), free range and free-range organic chickens. *shrug*

Every market in CA sells game hens, but I swear, other than the times I've bought them to cook beer-can hens, I've never seen anyone ever buy any, I seriously think that there are maybe 12 people in the entire state that buy game hens and they just travel from market to market to buy them up out of the markdown bins because they never sell until the butchers put them in the markdown bins for $2 for a twin-pack.

[OLS]

Originally Posted by T.G

they just travel from market to market to buy them up out of the markdown bins because they never sell until the butchers put them in the markdown bins for $2 for a twin-pack.

Haha, and yet they HAVE to carry them, lol. I won't lie, I love game hens fine, but have i ever
bought one...no.