This creole style vegan gumbo has all the richness and depth of flavor you would expect. It’s packed with veggies and fiber, and has that deep chocolaty taste from the well cooked roux.
I tried this dish, because I received an e-mail about a “Creole style gumbo”, and thought “that sounds interesting”. So I searched on-line and found 3 good looking recipes. I then amalgamated the best bits of each one to create this standout recipe.
The first time I made it the result was amazing. It was so tasty and very nutritious. It wasn’t too much work. If you use frozen okra it really is a breeze!
It was so flavorsome, that I’ll be doing this creole style vegan gumbo again for sure. Next time, though I think I’ll serve it with long grain brown rice, garlic bread and my special red bean pate.
Wikipedia has this to say about Creole style gumbo
Many shops in Bath, UK, stock the ingredients in my recipes – here are some of them: Harvest Wholefoods, Walcot Street, Bath; or Newleaf Healthfoods in Moorland Road, Bath; or Grape Tree in Cheap Street, Bath. The frozen okra is stocked by Stokes in Moorland Road, who also have a good selection of unusual vegetables.
Vegan Gumbo
Equipment
- 1 Large pan a sauteuse is best, but any fairly large pan will do
- 1 small to medium sized pan
Ingredients
For the roux
- 70 g wholewheat flour.
- 60 g rapeseed oil
The main vegetable ingredients for the gumbo
- 1 large red onion
- 2 or 3 stalks of celery
- 7 cloves of garlic
- 12 Vegan sausages
- 1.5 litre of stock – use 3 cubes
- 1 whole medium red pepper
- 1 whole medium green pepper
- 1 tin tomatoes or 400g vine tomatoes
- 50 g tomato puree
- 2 tbsps Worcester sauce
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 2 tbsps palm sugar brown sugar is an ok substitute
- 2 tbsps rounded yeast flakes
- 400 g Okra – frozen or fresh
- 400 g kidney or black beans black beans are best
- 30 g chopped fresh parsley
The Creole style seasoning
- 3 1/2 flat tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 1/2 flat tbsp onion powder
- 1 1/2 flat tbsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tbsp ground black peppercorns
- 1/2 tbsp ground white pepper
- 1 flat tbsp dried parsley
- 1 flat tbsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tbsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Put the oil and flour into a smallish pan and start to fry the flour on a medium heat – stirring constantly to avoid it burning.
- It will take around 15 to 20 minutes – you’re trying to get it to a rich deep brown colour – but it mustn’t burn. When it’s done you can set it aside.
- Slice the onions finely, and the celery into ½ cm or so lengths
- Slice the garlic finely and keep separately
- Start cooking the onions and celery in a large pan – I suggest 28cm – a sautéuse is great – but any largeish pan will do.
- After a few minutes add the sliced garlic and continue to cook on a medium heat until they are softening and browning nicely.
- Chop the peppers into approx 1cm pieces – not too small, but not too large. Cutting each half pepper into 4 lengthways, and then 4 the other way gives a good size. I generally put these in the Actifry and cook for 12 minutes.
- Cook the vegan sausages in the Actifry (if you have one) from frozen. When cooked, cut each sausage into into 5 pieces and set aside.
- Make up your 1.5l of vegetable stock using 3 stock cubes. Crumble the cubes into a large jug and add the water at boiling point and stir well.
- Add the made up stock to the pan with the onions and celery and stir.
- Warm up the roux if it’s been off the heat for a while, and whilst stirring the stock/veg mix add the roux whilst stirring continuously.
- It will start to thicken quite quickly and needs to be stirred well to avoid lumps forming.
- Add in all the spices and other additions such as palm sugar, vinegar and Worcester sauce, tomatoes and tomato puree
- Bring to the boil and simmer gently.
- Add the sausages.
- Cook for around 15 to 20 minutes and then add the okra – if it’s the frozen variety, bring back to a gently simmer.
- After 5 minutes add in the pre-cooked peppers and black (or kidney) beans.
- A minute or two after add in the chopped fresh parsley.
- Cook for another 5 minutes – check that the okra is done.
- Serve with rice or cous-cous.
