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Chicken Gumbo

A thickened soup with chicken, ham, onions, rice, and a roux made from butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rice.

  2. Boil the soaked rice for 30 minutes.

  3. Boil the ham for 30 minutes.

  4. Mince the chicken.

  5. Chop the onions.

Make the gumbo

  1. Add the minced chicken, chopped onions, and chicken soup stock to a pot.

  2. Make a smooth paste with the flour.

  3. Add the paste to the pot.

  4. Add the butter and coarse sea salt to the pot.

  5. Boil for 10 minutes.

  6. Mix in the rice with 1 pint of water.

  7. Add the ham and mix everything thoroughly.

Jar and sterilize

  1. Fill into sterilized jars while hot, seal, and sterilize in a boiler for 1½ hours.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms a smooth paste that thickens the stock and gives the gumbo body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving a smoother mouthfeel.
Rice
Softens and thickens the mixture, adding body and substance to the gumbo.
Minced chicken
Provides the main meat, adding savory flavor and protein-based texture.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky meat flavor that seasons the gumbo.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the stock.

The step that matters

Make a smooth paste with the flour. Flour lumps form if it is added dry to hot liquid. Mixing it into a smooth paste first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gumbo thickens without clumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, butter, flour, rice. 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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