New Orleans Cooking Experience: Boo's Seafood Gumbo

One thing that we made in our Cajun cooking class -- that I didn't think I'd like -- was this amazing gumbo.  I've never been much for seafood.. but I guess it's because I've 1. never really tried much 2. when I did it wasn't prepared well (or was too "fishy" for my ignorant palette).  Well this was cooked to perfection.

Below, Boo is snapping off the legs from the body of the blue crabs so that when you put them into the stock, the flavor of the crab meat will steep out of it.  Well let's get started with the recipe.

Materials:
The Holy Trinity --> 3 large onions (chopped), 6 celery stalks (chopped), and 1 bell pepper
6 garlic "toes" (cloves)
2 bay leaves
2 lbs fresh shrimp (peeled and deveined)
6 gumbo (blue) crabs --> snapped apart
1 lb fresh (and I mean fresh out of the bayou fresh) crab meat
The Trifecta --> Cayenne, Worcester sauce, and salt
The Amen --> a bunch of parsley and green onions, chopped
Lemon juice from 1 lemon

Method:
1.  Make your roux.
2.  When the roux is a very dark brown, add the garlic and the Holy Trinity.  Cook for 30 minutes.  Add one quart water (or stock), seasonings, cayenne and Worcester sauce (about 5 bloody Mary's worth).  Add the gumbo crabs and simmer for at least 30 minutes.
3.  Add the shrimp and cook for 1o minutes.

4.  Turn off the fire.  Add the crab meat and the Amen.  Let stand for 30 minutes.
5.  Serve with rice, potato salad, and hot French bread.

Some tips she gave us if we wanted to use this for another kind of gumbo:
-For a seafood gumbo, cook the stock for 1 hour, then add the seafood about 5 minutes before
-For a chicken/sausage gumbo -- cook the meat in the stock for the 1 hour.
-Brown the meat (chicken/sausage/fish) first before adding it to the stock.  Catfish works really well in the gumbo.
-The shrimp heads you cut off to use can be frozen and later used to make a seafood stock.

How good does this look?!