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Chicken Gumbo

A stew of gumbo, crabs, chicken, ham, corn, tomatoes, and onions simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a porcelain pot, combine the gumbo, crabs, chicken, ham, corn, tomatoes, and onions.

  2. Boil slowly for three hours.

  3. Slice the gumbo small and add it to the pot one hour before serving.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Chicken + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gumbo
Provides the body and thickening that give the stew its character.
Chicken
Adds savory meat flavor and substance to the stew as it simmers.
Crabs
Contribute briny, sweet seafood flavor to the broth as they cook.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, helping to build the broth's flavor.
Onions
Build savory depth and sweetness as they soften in the simmering pot.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, chicken, ham, corn, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, chicken, ham, corn, onion. 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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