Naw'lins in Yokosuka

My son told me about a New Orleans style restaurant that recently opened near the Yokosuka Navy Base. Now I fancy myself a pretty gumbo chef and love the food of Louisiana in general and New Orleans specifically. I have spent many happy times of my life in Louisiana and have attended several jazz festivals in New Orleans. But it was always the food that brings me some of the best memories.

The name of the place is Naw'lins. I tried the oyster poboy. It was authentic and delicious. The french fries were also very good and spicy as just about any food from New Orleans should be. I also tried their gumbo. The gumbo was quite good but it was a bit watery for my taste, but of course I'm biased. I plan to go back there and try out the other items on their menu. Here is their flyer, try them out, it is the best New Orleans cuisine I have tasted in Japan so far (outside of my own kitchen of course!).

Living in Japan, access to good gumbo is few and far between, unless and of course I make my own gumbo which of course I do. And I've taught cooking classes on making gumbo to an eager Japanese audience several times.

Even so, getting the right ingredients to make gumbo is another problem that I have solved. The missing ingredient is the andouille sausage. I can get just about everything I need to make a good pot of gumbo in Japan except for the sausage. I solved the problem by making my own, well smoked and all. I've documented the process in my Benesse Japanese blog.

Here are some pictures of the process:

Start with some well marbled pork shoulder. Fat is essential to the sausage.

I use fresh thyme for the best flavor.

After mixing all of the ingredients and a rough grind, we have raw sausage ready for stuffing.

Good old KitchenAid, all purpose kitchen tool.

I used this stove top smoker for this batch but I now have an electric smoker which can do much bigger batches.

And here is the final product, beautiful authentic Louisiana andouille sausage in Japan.