Chicken and Sausage gumbo

[OLS]

Originally Posted by Darrell

The Safeway by me never has whole chickens. Just hens.

I'll check and see if there are any Foster Farms packs like you mentioned.

For a minute I was thinking, FINE, hens. But you mean game hens I guess, not Baking hens. Man, you guys in California say it's so great, but you can't get a whole fryer in the store? What is this, Russia?

I like the thickening of the Okra, it JUST borders on slimy or too gelatinous,but I like the thickening and the taste. But you can easily make this dish without okra, in fact if I was wanting to DO that, I would make a bit more roux. How much roux you use obviously dictates whether or not you get a 'floury' character to your base for the price of it's thickening. But a properly proportioned roux should not make a dish 'floury'. But without the okra, you might need to put a bit more roux, or add a half teaspoon of corn starch in the end. Give it some body. Real chicken and sausage gumbo tend to be more of a soup, kinda thin. That's why a really good sausage is paramount. Chiken and kielbasa with a watery base is not too appetizing.

Good luck to all. Like the man said, DO NOT ruin 30-40-50 bucks worth of ingredients for 50 cents worth of ROUX. I can remember burning a roux for my fellow servicemen in NC...50 bucks worth of seafood that I could have saved, but I just dumped it into a burnt roux, and spent 4 months apologizing for my idiotic mistake.