a seafood gumbo

I made this seafood gumbo a week ago. I didn't plan it. It all started from my shopping at my Asian seafood store ABC Seafood. Whenever I go grocery shopping at the East side of Portland, I would usually check in to see what surprises Sharon has in store (pun intended) for me. Sometimes there are just the usually stuff. Sometimes something is in season and is good and cheap. In this trip they have live crawfish. I didn't know Oregon produces farmed crawfish until a while ago when I asked Sharon where they are from. Oregon, she said.

Seeing the crawly buggers I thought I would make a seafood gumbo with my homemade andouille sausage. I already have some seafood ingredients at home to add to the gumbo.

 I came home with some crawfish, clams, and mussels

preparing a dark roux

 you can see the progress in color

 getting close now to a dark brown which would give the nutty taste and color to the gumbo

the fightsy little fellows

 i blended up some canned roma tomato

 the meat from the crawfish

 i saved the head and shell to extract the flavor into a stock which I add to the gumbo

 i happen to have a bit of okra from a few days ago

 i also have some ling cod meat i filleted as well as a half dozen live oyster (in shell)

in addition to a mixture of spices i added some file powder that I brought back from New Orleans

  i saved a few crawfish for presentation