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Filet Gumbo

Filet gumbo is a stew of chicken pieces, onion, flour, salt, pepper, marjoram, water, sassafras powder, optional ham and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Filet Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the chicken pieces in cold water until the blood is drawn out.

  2. In a pot, heat the lard over medium heat until boiling.

  3. Add the chicken and minced onion to the pot.

  4. Dredge the chicken with flour and season with salt, pepper, and marjoram.

Cook

  1. Pour in the boiling water and cover the pot.

  2. Let it simmer slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Stir in the sassafras powder and let it stew for an additional 5-6 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a deep dish with boiled rice on the side.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + marjoramtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + marjoramtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lard
Provides fat for browning the chicken and carries the flavour of the pot.
Chicken
Forms the main body of the gumbo, releasing savoury flavour into the broth as it simmers.
Flour
Dredged onto the chicken, where it helps thicken the broth as it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the base as it softens in the fat.
Sassafras powder
Adds its distinctive aroma and earthy flavour to the finished gumbo.

The step that matters

Dredging the chicken in flour. Flour coating the chicken must be evenly applied, since it thickens the liquid when the boiling water is added. Uneven coating can leave lumps or pockets of raw flour taste in the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, pepper, marjoram, ham, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, pepper, marjoram, ham, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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