photo by wallyg
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival happens each year in the spring. The event is at the Fairgrounds Race Track, near a large city park. It's multiple days of excellent music and food. I'm sure some big names have played Jazzfest, but my visits have focused on gospel and food.
The Jazz & Heritage Festival has roots in Southern gospel music, and it shows with the quality of bands that play each year. Maybe the acoustics aren't the same as a small church, but the music makes up for it.
The other highlight is the food. Its one of the best ways to try different cajun and creole dishes, some that aren't very common outside the fairgrounds. The list is long, and I hope to eventually cover most, if not all of them here:
- Crawfish bread
- Crawfish balls
- Natchitoches meat pie
- Crawfish pie
- Muffuletta
I have never found a crawfish bread that comes even close to what you can find at Jazz Fest…
Prejean's Restaurant serves an excellent gumbo at the Jazz & Heritage Festival. This is not their gumbo, but it’s a good one. Its simple and it never fails. The only trick to this recipe is that you'll need a whole smoked chicken - easy where I live, perhaps not everywhere. There are ways to smoke a chicken yourself, but when I realized how fantastic the local version was, I quit doing it myself.
I serve large bowls of gumbo with a lump of packed rice dropped on top. The heat of this gumbo is heavily dependent on the sausage, so pay attention to what you decide to use.
Smoked Chicken Gumbo
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
2 cups white onions, minced
1 cup green bell peppers, minced
1 cup celery, chopped
10 cups chicken stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves
1 pound andouille sausage
1 whole smoked chicken
To make the gumbo:
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Don't let it smoked. Add the flour a little at a time.
- Let the flour cook, stirring almost constantly, until it is a dark roux, the color of good coffee.
- Add half the onions, peppers and celery and cook about 5 minutes. Add the seasonings and cook another 5 minutes.
- Add 8 cups of stock to the roux, bring to a boil and cook 30 minutes.
- Add the rest of the vegetables, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, sausage and remaining stock. Simmer another 30 minutes.
- Remove the sausage from the gumbo and slice into 1/4 in slices. Return to the gumbo and cook for another 30 minutes.
- While the gumbo is finishing, remove all the meat from the chicken and dice. Set aside.
- Add the chicken and let the gumbo cool for 10 minutes. Spoon into bowls with rice.