Catfish Gumbo

Welcome to another recipe review here at The Scratching Post! I'm Jacob the Syrian Hamster, scurrying this way and that across the kitchen counter to bring you hints and tips to make some online recipes even better.

Last night we made Catfish Gumbo from this recipe over at The Catfish Institute. The end result was delicious and both of the children in this house ate it with delight. Here are my modifications to the recipe.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of oil to saute the vegetables. That is way too much. 1/8 cup would have been just fine. When I saw that amount of oil, I cut it down, but still not enough. The liquid released by the vegetables as they cook will provide enough lubrication to prevent burning. I used a red peper instead of a green one since that's what I had in my garden and I pureed the onion to accomodate the kids' concerns about seeing them.

The recipe calls for vegetables measured in cups. To me, that's an irrational unit of measurement for vegetables. I used 1 onion, 1 pepper and 3 celery stalks. That gets you close enough to the measurements they give to produce the desired result. This is cooking, after all, not the DuPont chemisty lab.

I did not use the cayenne pepper, but allowed everyone to add Cajun hot sauce to their bowls. That worked fine and accomodated those who don't like anything spicy.

Lastly, we were short of time, so I simmered the vegetables for only 30 minutes instead of 30, but I cooked the gumbo with the catfish added for the full 15 minutes the recipe called for. It turned out just fine.

All in all, the recipe gets a big thumbs up from us.