Sure there is! As mentioned, filé gumbo is certainly a traditional form of gumbo, and has no okra. Also, there are roux-based gumbos without okra or filé, but on that you can convince me that’s not “true” gumbo.
For me, it would have to be chicken or egg salad without the raw celery. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those philistines who will refuse to eat said dish(es) if it does happen to contain celery, but I do prefer it without the stuff, as I’m not at all fond of raw celery.
I sometimes order Chicken Marsala and then pick out the mushrooms. They add a flavor to the meal when cooked with them, but I hate the actual texture of them.
I think I might try the same with broccoli in chili and/or fajitas (even though broccoli is not a traditional ingredient.) It adds a bitter taste to the dish that I like some times even though I don’t like eating the straight up pieces of broccoli that are in the meal. But throwing out something you cook something in seems wasteful.
actually you can make it with subbing in scallops for the nasty icky liver +) and I once saw someone on a cooking porn show make it with a nugget of wagyu beef instead of the liver. I would like to try either or both of those …
Since I’m vegan (except for honey) if I want pizza, it’s got to be a cheeseless pizza. There really aren’t any vegan cheese substitutes that actually approximate cheese-I can make a cheeselike sauce, but taste and texture of cheese in a vegan version-nope. It all has casein in it.
Believe it or not, if I manage to pull off a good whole-wheat yeast-raised crust, cheeseless pizza’s most excellent-like a ciabatta with a tomato sauce and veggies baked on top.
But I’m trying to lose the last 20 pounds, so I haven’t been doing that sort of thing lately. Maybe I should make a teeny-tiny one.
Nope. Sorry. I got the manual* right here, and it clearly says “Thy Gumbo shalt contain okra”. Those variants mentioned, while tasty, are not Gumbo. They may be described as “gumbo-like” “sorta-bo” "“stuff we made when we wanted Gumbo but were out of okra”“faux-bo”, “authentic Cajun-style food product” or “Yankees might eat this instead of the real thing”.
*Oak’s Utterly Mythical Compendium of Ultimate Truth on Many Subjects
Filé powder is hardly a Northern thing. (Add to that I’ve never even seen filé gumbo in the North.) There is even speculation that the word “gumbo” comes from the Choctaw word kombo, meaning “sassafras,” which is what filé powder is. (However, the more popular etymology is that it’s probably from a Bantu word meaning “okra.” Rather neat coincidence.)
At any rate, if you look up gumbo recipes going way back to the early 1900s, filé and okra are both common. Certain gumbos are associated with certain thickeners. For example, chicken and sausage gumbo should be (in my opinion) a filé gumbo. Shrimp gumbo should be okra. And never the twain shall meet in the same recipe. No filé and okra gumbos. It must be one or the other.