Hello everyone and welcome back to Prix Fixed, Lifehacker’s new menu planning column menu.
Whether you’re having a hot date, a big anniversary, or meeting your in-laws for the first time, we’ll help you plan an impressive menu that suits your nutritional needs and culinary skills. Will there be hacks? You can bet your butt will be there.
Our second letter is from a well-prepared host who is looking for a freezer-safe meal to add to her repertoire for impromptu dinner parties:
Hello Claire,
Summer is the sociable season here. My place is usually where our group ends up after an excursion. There are also unexpected (but welcome) drop-ins at least once a month. Because of this, I often host impromptu dinners.
I always have a freezer to hand. In general, it’s something like lasagna, bolognese sauce, or meatballs. It goes down well, but it gets boring. I would like to have a more interesting ace in the hole.
Ideally, it would be either a ready-made meal in the freezer or, if freshly cooked, something that comes together and is quickly cleaned up. Inviting a friend to hack or prep is often an option, but not always. I would rate my cooking skills with A minus.
I have an oven, four-burner hob, microwave, saucepan, and grill. However, I would prefer not to light the coals for it at playtime. There is plenty of freezer space.
Always at hand are various fresh herbs (coriander, chives, sage, thyme, parsley), eggs, a kind of cracker-friendly cheese and the usual fridge / pantry staples. I’m allergic to shellfish so this is not an option. I am open to most other proteins. In terms of budget, what I have in mind is reasonable, but not necessarily cheap – maybe somewhere between hot dogs and steak.
Many Thanks. I am curious what you will think of.
I love hosting and I loved being prepared so I have a strong connection with this email and love it very much. You seem to have a good grip on the Italian subgenre of frozen foods, but did you know that many Cajun and Creole foods are also wonderful to freeze? My favorite is gumbo.
There are many different ways to make gumbo and three different ways to thicken it. Okra (hence gumbo’s name), fillet powder, and roux add body and flavor to the dish, but my mom’s simple (shellfish-free) chicken and sausage gumbo only uses two – roux and fillet. My mother’s people are Cajuns, most likely descended from the Acadians who hailed from the French part of Canada, so our gumbo has no tomatoes and is heavily reliant on roux. (In fact, we couldn’t find a file when we first moved to Los Angeles from Mississippi, so our gumbo was just roux for most of my childhood. It was still very good.)
Gumbo is traditionally simmered for several hours, but I often cheat by removing all of the meat from a pre-cooked roast chicken and then taking the carcass and simmering it in store-bought chicken broth for an intensely flavorful and gelatinous broth. Stock hybrid. You can do this day the day before to reload the work and cut down the simmer at the end. Haters will say it’s scam and not traditional, but I’ve already said that.
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Gumbo should be served with rice – although some serve it with potato salad – so you have three options. You can make a fresh serving of rice when you thaw your gumbo, you can Prepare a whole bunch of boiled rice and freeze it, or you can buy them very conveniently and overpriced frozen rice bags from Trader Joe’s (Each box contains about six servings of rice). There are no wrong answers, so choose the route that is most convenient for you.
Shopping
Before you can cook, you need to do some shopping. Here’s what you need:
- 1 pound andouille sausage
- 1 pre-cooked roast chicken
- 2 stalks of celery
- 2 peppers (green is traditional, but I prefer red and yellow.)
- 1 large onion
- 1 bunch of spring onions
- Cajun seasoning, preferably Tony Chacheres or something with a similar amount of salt
- Rice (or Trader Joe’s Frozen Jasmine Rice)
- At least 6 cups of chicken broth
- Powder fillet
You’ll also need a few common pantry staples:
- Flour (at least 3/4 of a cup)
- Vegetable oil (same amount)
- Granulated garlic
- Granulated onion
- Freeze-proof plastic bags with zippers
The plan
This gumbo doesn’t have that many ingredients, so its taste depends on two main components: the broth and the roux. You could use regular store broth and you’ll be fine, but like I mentioned earlier, I like to use the leftover rotisserie chicken carcass to spice it up (chicken?) And give it more body and taste (and essentially convert to stocks). For this souped-up broth / broth you will need:
- 1 roast chicken
- 6 cups store-bought broth
Take the chicken carcass and remove all of the meat from its skeleton. Save all of the skin and bones and cartilage. Place the meat in some sort of container or ziploc bag, seal it, and put it in the refrigerator until you’re ready.
Place the carcass (and skin and cartilage) in a large saucepan, pour your broth over it, and bring everything to a boil. Simmer for two to three hours until the broth has darkened. (If you have an instant pot, you can throw it all in and cook under high pressure for 45 minutes.) Strain the broth / broth, let it cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until it’s ready to use. I usually make the broth / broth in the evening before I want to cook the gumbo, otherwise it’s just too tedious. This is also a great time to prepare your rice as well freeze it when you don’t use Little Trader Joe’s bags.
Now you are ready to make the gumbo. To do this, you need:
- 1 pound andouille sausage cut into 1/4 inch thick coins
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup flour
- 2 stalks of celery, chopped into 1/4 inch
- 2 peppers, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 large onion, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
- 2 teaspoons of Cajun seasoning, preferably Tony Chacheres
- 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic
- 1 teaspoon of granulated onion
- 6 cups of broth
- The reserved roast chicken
- 1 tablespoon fillet powder
- Diced spring onions (for garnish)
Get yours first set up ready. Chop and cut everything that needs to be chopped and cut, and measure your spices. If gumbo were a chemical reaction, roux would be that rate-determining step– Once it’s done it goes very quickly so it’s best to have everything prepared and ready to go. (Oh, also: if you’re concerned about the lack of salt in the ingredient list, don’t be; Tony Chachere has had enough of it.)
When everything is ready, place the andouille in a large stock pot or Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until the coins are browned on both sides. Take out of the pot and set aside. Take the pan off the burner and let it cool for a few minutes. Take this time to pick a playlist and make sure everything you need for the next 40 minutes is within reach because roux is one of those things that really needs constant stirring. (My roux was after exactly one full listen to The Bee Gees’ ideawhich is pretty good roux touching music.)
Anyway, add the oil and flour to your saucepan or Dutch oven, set the heat to just below medium-low and stir constantly (with a whisk or wooden spatula) until it turns the color of chocolate milk. Don’t be discouraged if it looks like this will never happen. Your roux will likely stay a sandy blonde color for quite a while, then it will turn a nice toffee hue before finally reaching the chocolate milk color we are looking for. Don’t stop before the chocolate milk color – it gives gumbo its signature backbone, and it just doesn’t taste right when you use a lighter roux.
Oh, and please be very careful when stirring your roux and adding your veggies. You’re essentially frying flour in hot oil, creating a searing paste that sticks to your skin and burns the crap out of you. I burned myself with roux exactly once, and that bubble taught me a valuable lesson (don’t make a gumbo if you’ve been chemically altered in any way).
Now that your roux is ready, season your vegetables with the Tony’s, granulated garlic, and granulated onion. Add them to the roux, raise the heat to medium and let them cook, stirring frequently, until they are all nice and soft. (Don’t worry about the roux on fire, the vegetables give off enough moisture to prevent this from happening.)
Add four cups of the broth, bring it to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for at least half an hour, ideally an hour. If it gets too thick, add a little more stock. Add your sausage and chicken and simmer until your proteins are warmed through. Give it a try and flavor it with more tones if it’s not salty enough. Remove from heat and stir in fillet powder.
Your gumbo is ready. Enjoy a bowl to reward yourself for all of the roux, then let it cool completely before freezing it.
Once it cools, divide it up into two gallon freezer bags. Lay the bags on their side, then slowly push the gumbo towards the opening of the bag to force the air out and form an even layer. (If you’ve never frozen food like this before, look that for a more detailed explanation.) Seal the bags and place them on a sheet pan to freeze. As soon as they are frozen, you can stack them on top of each other or “place” them vertically next to each other.
When you’re ready to serve your gumbo, simply hold the bag under warm water to loosen things up, then slide the gumbo into a saucepan and warm it over medium heat. You can make a fresh pot of rice, Warm up your frozen rice, or toss a few bags of Trader Joe in the microwave. Serve in bowls over hot rice and garnish with spring onions and spicy Louisiana sauce, preferably crystal.
