The definitive guide to cooking the Crescent City classic at home.

Gumbo – a soupy stew made with seafood or poultry – is to Louisiana what the Sunday roast is to Britain. It’s woven into the cultural framework of the place, everyone is uncharacteristically defensive about the proper way to make it and you can safely assume that nobody can cook it quite like grandmother does. If you haven’t been introduced to Louisiana’s official state cuisine, you could do worse than starting with Mr Tom Fitzmorris’ recipe.

Mr Fitzmorris is a New Orleans food critic who has been writing books on his hometown’s cuisine for more than two decades, thus firmly establishing him as one of the Crescent City’s most knowledgeable trenchermen. His epicurean magnum opus, New Orleans Food, was originally published back in 2006, but has been revised and updated as a brand-new edition this month. It is not a trend-led cookbook, nor is it a collection of impossible recipes that can only be replicated by lofty gourmands. Instead, it’s full of wholesome, hearty and authentic Big Easy home-cooking recipes (a whopping 250 of them), and the pages are stuffed with recipes for everything from blackened tuna to beignets.

For New Orleanians, according to Mr Fitzmorris, good food relies on intuition. “We just know gumbo when we taste it, and we know when we’re not tasting it,” Mr Fitzmorris writes. “So what does it taste like? The only way I can really explain it is to give you the recipes that I know create what I think of as real Creole or Cajun flavour.” You might not come across all of the ingredients in your local supermarket or convenience store, and if you’re on our side of the Atlantic you’ll likely have to order the filé powder (made from ground sassafras leaves) online, but we hope that with Mr Fitzmorris’ expertise, you can make it just like Mama.

“This is my favourite style of gumbo. I’ve enjoyed it literally all my life, as it is basically my mother’s recipe, a regular part of her weekly cooking regimen,” says Mr Fitzmorris. “This gumbo is made in the old style, which is to say that the broth is not as thick as has come to be the vogue in most restaurants these days. We called it filé gumbo because Mama put filé only in chicken gumbo and okra only in seafood gumbo. The filé goes in at the table, and then just a pinch for aroma. This is one of those soups that gets better after it sits in the refrigerator for a day. This recipe also reduces the amount of time needed on the stove by about a third.”

Serves six to 10

1 stewing chicken (6lb) 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/2 cup flour 1 large onion, chopped 1 red bell pepper, chopped 2 cloves garlic, chopped 3 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, chopped 12 cups chicken stock or water 1 tbsp salt 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce 2 bay leaves 1/4 tsp dried thyme 1lb andouille or other smoked sausage 2 green onions, chopped 2-3 cups cooked long-grain rice Filé powder (optional)

01.

Cut the chicken into 12 pieces. Sear them in 2 tbsp oil in a large kettle or Dutch oven over fairly high heat. Keep turning the chicken pieces until they brown on the outside; they should not cook through.

02.

Remove the chicken and reserve. Add the flour and remaining oil to the pot and make as dark a roux as you can. The key to making a roux is to avoid burning it. This is accomplished by constant stirring and watching the heat.

03.

When the roux is medium-dark, reduce the heat and add the onion, bell pepper, garlic and parsley, and sauté until the onions are translucent and have started to brown.

04.

Return the chicken to the pot, along with the chicken stock or water, salt, pepper, Tabasco, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a simmer and cook for about an hour.

05.

Slice the sausage into 1in-thick discs. Wrap them in paper towels and microwave them on medium power for about 3 minutes to remove excess fat. Add the sausage to the gumbo pot.

06.

Cook the gumbo, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is tender, for 1-2 hours. If you plan to serve the gumbo the next day, cook it for just 30 minutes, let it cool to warm, cover and refrigerate. You might want to strip the chicken meat (see next step) while waiting for the gumbo to cool.

07.

When ready to serve, remove the chicken and strip the meat off if you haven’t done so already. Slice the chicken into bite-size pieces and return to the pot. (You can also just leave the pieces as is if you’re among family.) If you made the gumbo in advance, bring it up to simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the spring onions and simmer for another 3-4 minutes.

08.

Serve over rice with a pinch or two of filé at the table.

Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food (Abrams & Chronicle) by Mr Tom Fitzmorris, Mr Emeril Lagasse and Ms Rinne Allen is out now