Eh, woops. Didn't see this thread again till just now.
But IRISH just nailed it. Gumbo is technically supposed to be a soup, so you can take the above jambalaya recipe, leave out the rice and add (sliced) okra and shrimp and a can of chopped tomatoes and whip up a decent quickie gumbo.
I do it a bit different because I enjoy puttering around and taking my time (making an afternoon out of it)...
(This is a camp gumbo, not a proper Cajun resteraunt gumbo (no roux
).)
Brown about a foot and a half of a sausage (crosscut), three or four big onions (any color) chopped rough not fine, and way too much (two or three full bulbs worth) chopped garlic (with garlic and also sweet basil, there's pretty much no such thing as "too much") in a bit of oil, take out and set aside.
Toss in a chicken (whole or cut up, won't matter), or the equivalent weight of dressed game birds or rabbits. Fill pot with water and boil until whatever it is completely falls apart. Use a strainer spoon to fish out everything leaving only the broth/stock in the pan. Let the chunky stuff cool a bit.
Getcher fingers dirty and fish out all the hard inedible bits - bones, tendons, etc. (I despise picking bones out of my food while I'm eating, so I do it while cooking). I usually leave the skin (with birds, not rabbits
). Chop it up fairly fine and toss it back in the pot along with the sausage onions and garlic you set aside earlier.
Add chopped tomatoes (a large can's worth, juice and all), couple three chopped bell peppers, a head of celery (crosscut, leaves and all), a chopped up bundle of green onions and chives. Add a pound or so of okra (crosscut, no stems). In the field, I just use frozen.
If you happen to have a can of clams laying around, or just clam juice, toss that in too. (The fish/shrimp goes in last, but clams, muscles or oysters go in early to tenderize.)
If there are kids (or wimps) eyeballing my gumbo pot, I just use one or two jalapenos, nothing stronger, and I leave the cayenne powder as a garnish.
Otherwise, I generally use three or four finely chopped jalapenos (without the seeds, they'll mellow and the gumbo will have a little bite, but won't be hot enough to really bother anyone).
If everyone in camp is a tough guy, I'll also toss in a couple of serranos or habaneros, whole. Leave the stems and seeds so you can fish it out later when you serve so no one gets a big surprise (real men regard them as a treat and will fight over them). Poke it once with a fork to make a couple small holes before you toss it in.
Add a couple of pinches of salt (go easy here), a couple of cayenne powder (or not with kids), but leave out the black pepper. (A little black pepper boiled can add a lot of heat but also lose its flavor if boiled too long (excellent trick if you want that "sneaks up on you" effect). I generally prefer to add it at the table.) Add a heaping teaspoon of filé powder.
If you have bay leaves, two or three are good, and a spoonful of worstershire sauce or Thai fish sauce (or both) won't hurt either.
If you are using canned fish, crack open the cans and drain into the pot.
Bring it all to a boil and reduce to a simmer. By this time, dinner is approaching, so the simmer is only going to last an hour or so. Longer is fine and in the field I like to have it come out thicker and more like a stew anyway.
Start prepping two pounds or so of fish. I don't want bones in my gumbo, so I use fish that can be filleted. Catfish is most proper, but bass or croppie rocks as well. (And pretty much any fresh saltwater fish). Or, use cans. Doesn't matter what - tuna, salmon, mackerel. Hell, I love fish so it's all good to me. Cut the fillets into 1" chunks.
Peel and devein a pound or two of shrimp. Or, use the little ones in cans or frozen.
The fish cooks and breaks down fast, and the shrimp gets chewy fast, but I like shellfish well done, so about 15 minutes before dinner, I toss in the shrimp, and 5 minutes later, the fish. If it's canned fish, break it up a bit before you dump it in.
Serve in bowls with crunchy buttery bread. If it's thick enough and you have two pans, you can serve over rice. Or if it's soupy, put a pot of rice on the table and add it there. In a pinch, you can add rice while cooking, but that's more a jambalaya and it's tricky to get the timing right or the rice might come out crunchy in the center.
Salt, black pepper, cayenne powder and filé powder on the table to add for individual taste.
And don't even get me started on goulash.