At the library last week, I snatched the entire stack of Cook’s Illustrated magazines and ever since I’ve been happily sifting through the recipes, making grocery lists, tracking down unique ingredients, and experimenting. For supper a couple nights back, I made chicken and sausage gumbo. It was delicious — spicy, rich, meaty, and flavorful — but the thing that I was most excited about was the sauce. Or rather, how I had thickened the sauce.

The recipe called for toasting the flour — a whole cup of it — in the oven until it was the color of cinnamon and then adding it to the broth to flavor, thicken, and darken the sauce. I’d never heard the likes, so of course I had to try it.

Not knowing what to expect, the process felt touch-and-go. While the flour toasted, I hovered, afraid it would scorch, but I needn’t have worried — the flour browned slowly and steadily. Then, adding the broth to the flour, the paste turned lumpy even though I had been steadily whisking the whole time. I ran my immersion blender through the paste — problem solved. And then, immediately after adding the flour to the liquid, the sauce tasted grainy, like a Nicaraguan corn drink, and I nearly threw in the towel. There was no way I’d get this by my family’s noses.

But then, after simmering the sauce for another 20-30 minutes, the weird texture completely disappeared, leaving the sauce smooth as silk. Dark, nutty brown, and lusciously rich, it reminded me of an adobo sauce (never mind that I’ve never made an adobo sauce) — it had depth.

I’m still scratching my head about the flour, though. Any other time, adding a cup of flour to four cups of liquid would yield a horribly gelatinous paste, so why not in this case? Does flour lose its thickening properties after it’s been toasted?

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo
Adapted from the January and February 2017 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

The recipe called for two pounds of chicken, but since there was plenty of sauce, next time I’ll use three pounds.

As for the sausage, andouille is expensive and sort of hard to find, and after eating it, I think any spicy sausage would work well here. Next time I’ll probably use kielbasa instead.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon each smoked paprika and dried thyme
2 bay leaves
¼ – ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used chile coban)
4 cups chicken broth, divided
2-3 pounds skinless, boneless chicken thighs
8 ounces andouille sausage, sliced in half lengthwise and then in crosswise in quarter-inch pieces
salt and black pepper
6 scallions, sliced thin
1 teaspoon white vinegar

to toast the flour:
Put the flour in a sided baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, stirring every five minutes. When the flour is the color of ground cinnamon, remove it from the oven and transfer to a bowl to cool. The flour can be made ahead and stored in the freezer.

to make the gumbo:
Saute the pepper, onion, and celery in the oil until softened. Add the garlic, thyme, paprika, bay leave, cayenne, and a bit of salt and pepper and saute for another minute. Add 2 cups of chicken broth. Nestle the chicken into the broth in a single layer (don’t worry if it’s not completely submerged) and cook on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until it’s cooked through. Remove the chicken to a plate to cool and then shred with a fork.

Slowly whisk the remaining 2 cups of broth into the browned flour. If the paste is lumpy, use an immersion blender to smooth it out. Increase the heat under the vegetables and slowly whisk in the flour-broth paste. Add the sausage. Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the chicken and scallions to the gumbo and heat through. Remove the bay leaves and season with salt and black pepper. Remove from heat and stir in the vinegar.

Serve the gumbo over rice.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.1.16), stuck buttons and frozen pipes, how we got our house, taco seasoning mix, advice, please.

Tuesday morning, the older two kids said they wanted to go snowboarding that evening. I hesitated. Snowboarding increased the likelihood of an injury, and I wasn’t too keen on complicating my week of single parenting with a hospital trip. But, I told myself, there was no point in making choices based on fear. (I didn’t drink any wine that evening, though, just in case.)

Several hours later when I got the call from my son saying that he’d taken a tumble and thought he broke his wrist, I laughed. But of course.

“The guy here says I should get an x-ray.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “But your sister drives, not you.” And then I curled up in front of the fire with a book while my children took themselves off to the ER.

The x-rays came back negative, much to my son’s dismay. “I know it’s broken,” he said. “It hurts.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a wimp.”

“No, the doctor read the x-ray wrong! I’m sure of it.”

“Listen, hon. They took x-rays. You can think whatever you want, but that doesn’t change the facts.” I was mad at myself for letting them go the ER without coming home first. The kid was such an alarmist. Next time, I’d make him wait a couple days before we went running off to the doctor.

Three days later, the phone rang. “I’m calling from the ER,” a woman said, “I’m so sorry, but the radiologist who reviews the ER’s x-rays says that your son’s wrist actually is broken.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh, he is going to love this,” I said.

“We’d like him to come in and get it wrapped, if he can.”

“Well, he’s on a 12-hour shift with the rescue squad right now —”

“Oh, perfect!” she interrupted. “Next time they bring a patient in, can he just stay a few minutes longer so I can wrap it?”

I hung up the phone and then called my son. “Congratulations,” I said. “Your wrist is broken.”

“I knew it,” he shrieked. “I TOLD YOU.” And then he added, “Actually, my wrist feels fine — I even lifted a patient out of the ambulance all by myself — it’s my head that hurts now.”

“Your head?” I was confused.

“Yeah, I tried to jump into the ambulance, but I misjudged and cracked my head on the doorway.”

Oh yeah. Of course he did.

This same time, years previous: omlettey egg bake, through my lens: a wedding, the quotidian (1.26.15), the quotidian (1.27.14), what you can do, housekeeping, grumble, grumble, thoughts.

When we moved into this house, we installed a large underground gas tank for the hot water heater (although now we’ve partially switched to solar) and for the gas stove I’d be getting. But then costs piled up, as they are wont to do with building projects, and a friend offered to loan us an old electric stove he had in one of his rentals.

Now, twelve years later, that sweet little stove is on its last leg. The burners keep slipping down under the metal liners, turning the burners dangerously wobbly. The big one — my most-used burner — lost a screw (or something) and started swiveling out over the stove top. “Remind me to fix that,” my husband said. “I don’t want anyone to get electrocuted.” (And then he fixed it, so at least that’s no longer a problem.) Because I don’t want to be forced into an impulse purchase, and because the stove’s demise is imminent, I’ve finally started stove hunting.

Thing is, I can’t for the life of me figure out what kind of a stove I should get. All the options make my head swim. For a little bit there, I’d thought I’d settled on a stove (this one), but then we read the consumer reports and thought better of it — the oven was horrible, people said. (But then a friend told me she’d just bought that stove and it worked great, so, argh!)

“You need to do a blog post about it,” my husband said. “Get your readers to help out. They’ll know.”

So now, because my husband thinks the world of you, here I am, asking your advice. What kind of stove should I get?

My main question is whether to get a stove with a gas oven or an electric oven. My gut says gas — I can bake when the power goes out and it just feels more wholesome — but my husband says gas ovens leak more heat which would be a real pain come hot summer weather. Plus, we both wonder if electric ovens are more accurate. Also, how important is convection?

Several stipulations:
*The gas stovetop must have solid gridwork so pots and pans can easily be moved around and little kettles don’t get tippy.
*The oven must be well-vented so veggies properly roast.
*The stove must be under a thousand dollars (and preferably between six and eight hundred).

I wish there was a local appliance store — the kind where the employees can actually hold informed conversations regarding the products they sell — but there are none in our area, at least that I know of.  So it’s up to you! What other important criteria am I forgetting? Is there a particular manufacturer that you trust more than others? Or one that I should absolutely avoid?

Thanks, y’all.
xoxo!

This same time, years previous: the blizzard of 2016, rocks in my granola, five things, corn tortillas, pink cupcakes, movie night, baked Brie.