My Gumbo is "heat activated"

[black chef]

well, to kick-off 2007, i fixed a HUUUUUUGE pot of gumbo for the family, and it's my famous chicken + beef sausage + shrimp + snowcrab clusters + lump blue crab meat + crawfish + turkey andouille gumbo.

that's right... i put EVERYTHING in there.

to get things kicked-off, i debone two whole chickens-reserving the meat for a quick browning later. i roast the bones, necks, wing tips, etc. and the wing tips from 1 large pack of chicken wings in the oven-until VERY brown. after browning, i place them in a simmering pot of water with chopped celery, onions, bell peppers, garlic, and carrots... i bring this to a boil and simmer for 4-6 hours.

with about 30 min to go on the stock, i get the roux ready by doing what i call a "shrimp infusion" because i while it's still hot, i sprinkle-in about 1/4 lb of dried, powdered shrimp in it to carry the shrimp flavor thru.

about 1-1/2 cups of this roux is added to carmelized celery, onion, and bell pepper and then added to the "skimmed" stock... and this is simmered for about 1 more hour. with about 30 min to go, i add-in the remaining ingredients, but one thing i noticed...

while the gumbo is hot (with heat), it's also hot (with spices). but as it cools off (temp.), i notice that the spices also mellow out. i told my friends from out of town to let their gumbo cool for about 5 min before eating... while the locals dove right-in; they got the full effect.

as the saying goes... "the gumbo is ALWAYS better the next day, and while you're eating it, if you're NOT sweating and/or blowing your nose, it ain't seasoned enough."

can anyone tell me why the temp affects the spices sooooo much?

[Uncle Bob]

Let me say up front....I don't have a clue to your question!

However; I don't see how...say cayenne pepper is going to go up and down with the temperature...So I have to guess it has something to do with the taste buds responding to hot gumbo vs. cold gumbo....Will be interesting to hear what others have to say.......

[StirBlue]

This is a very difficult recipe to achieve by your description of the process. Can you give me all the ingredients that I will need to make some of this gumbo? Sure sounds good.

[black chef]

Quote:

Originally Posted by StirBlue This is a very difficult recipe to achieve by your description of the process. Can you give me all the ingredients that I will need to make some of this gumbo? Sure sounds good.

my gumbo-cooking methods and ingredients are top secret info... if i told you how i did it, i'd have to keep you "quiet."

just joking... but to post the entire recipe will take a while the way i do it: it's mass but organized confusion with LOTS of dirty dishes lying around and your nose is assaulted with various smells as the stock is cooked first, followed by the crabs and shrimp being boiled. then, the browning/searing of the chicken followed by the carmelization of the "trinity" with sausage. then, the roux with the powdered shrimp slowly infused.

then, step-by-step, i begin adding the browned chicken, crabs, crawfish, shrimp, etc. i let them slowly simmer and at the very end, i add-in the lump crabmeat.

seriously, if you want a good gumbo for sunday night, you need to have it fully prepared on saturday night.

[auntdot]

BC, I have no answer. But that never stopped me from speculating. Sorry.

As a devoted chile head, tenderfoot only (cannot deal with too much heat but we do go through an awful lot of hot sauce and peppers), have not experienced that phenomenon.

But then again many things pass my notice and it is an interesting point.

Our tongues only have a few different types of receptors, and my guess is many of them are stimulated by hot, in addition to any specific taste, such as salty, they are programmed to respond to.

Or perhaps, the hot and cold receptors are different from those that detect various tastes, I do not know.

Quite possibly when we stimulate our taste buds with both spicy hot and thermal hot our brains get a bit confused and interpret the stimuli as excess spicy hot.

Just, as I said, a guess.

As an aside, I think it is unfortunate that the English language does not have terms to distinguish between spicy hot and temperature hot.

Just a peeve, sorry.

Take care.

[Andy M.]

It also could be that the pepper oils that contain the heat are activated by the heat, similar to other flavor components.

[YT2095]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy M. It also could be that the pepper oils that contain the heat are activated by the heat, similar to other flavor components.

yup!

it`s all about the volatility of the aromatic oils, although most have a low Melting points and are non polar molecules, given enough heat they overcome the vapor pressure of the air (101 kilo pascals) and present themselves to the nose and the Outside of the food.

you`re quite right in your assesment, the spices are indeed heat activated :)
although they`re are Still present no matter what temp you eat them at.

Think Scratch and Sniff stickers, it`s a Similar principal :)

[BreezyCooking]

Spices/seasonings are all (as far as I know) very affected by temperature.

This is why you usually see seasoning amounts increased (& are instructed to taste again & reseason if necessary before serving) for cold soups (like cucumber, gazpacho, etc.) versus hot soups.

[Robo410]

I'm coming to dinner...love gumbo!

[black chef]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robo410 I'm coming to dinner...love gumbo!

this gumbo won a local award... you'd better hurry; there isn't much left.