I have to say, the recipes look awful. Is it good? What am I missing.
I guess it depends on how you feel about fried fish.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, to make swamp gravy you fry up some fish. Then you remove the fish and fry a diced potato, a diced onion, and a can of diced tomatoes in the frying pan to soak up the drippings. Peppers, corn, and okra might be optional ingredients. Pour the result back on top of the fish.
I don’t see anything terribly wrong with the idea.
Never had it, never heard of it, but it sounds delicious.
I’ve never heard of it, but the description above sounds great to me. I assume given the name and ingredients this is a Louisiana thing?
Sounds awesome to me.
Never had it or heard of it, but I’d do it in a second.
It sounds like a basic New Orleans recipe for grillades. You’d probably have some grits on the plate as well, and they’d get an equal dose of the gravy.
Sounds good, but it seems to be a lot more like a stew than a “gravy.” (Other recipes recommend taking the fish off the bone and mixing it in.) It seems to differ from other fish stews in that the fish is fried first rather than stewed with the rest of the ingredients.
I’ve seen recipes that suggest other meats but fried fish is the primary choice. I think the basic idea was this was a recipe you could make during a fishing trip (presumably you’re fishing in the swamp) over a campfire.
“What’s your secret ingredient?”
“Mosquitoes.”
Well, that would make it etouffee..
A whole lot of Cajun recipes are variations on a theme. Meat, poultry or seafood cooked in the “holy trinity” of onion, celery, and green pepper, plus garlic and sometimes tomatoes. Oh, and rice. See also jambalaya, gumbo, dirty rice, etc.
I think an etouffee would be more like a gravy in that it contains a roux. “Gravy” to my mind usually contains some thickening agent like flour or cornstarch. From the recipes I’ve seen “swamp gravy” doesn’t seem to contain any thickening agent, so it seems odd to call it a gravy.
Then again Paulie Walnuts on The Sopranos calls marinara sauce “gravy”…
I’m sure you know that roux is just flour browned in oil. When I make gravy, I start with a roux and then add the liquid, rather than adding thickener later. It eliminates the taste of uncooked flour and the need for some sort of browning agent like Kitchen Bouquet.
“Swamp gravy,” just appears to be a fanciful name for a common side dish that was served with fried fish and hush puppies in certain communities. Read page 1. Interesting history of a food I hadn’t heard of.
Isn’t étouffée just a type of stew?
I should probably more accurately say “folk history.” It’s not an absolutely verified source of the phrase, but I can’t imagine it’s anything but a folksy name for a thick liquid stew concoction that goes with a fried fish dinner.
It would be very easy to made swamp gravy here b/c the city water taste like swamp water ! My dog doesn’t even like it.