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New Orleans GuMBO

A hearty stew of fowl, beef, onions, lard, oysters, and water, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Orleans GuMBO

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a soup pot, combine the fowl, beef, lard, onion, and cold water.

  2. Cook until the meat falls apart.

  3. Add the oysters with their liquor and season to taste.

  4. Serve when the mixture is thick and mucilaginous.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Onion + oystertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides rich meat flavor and body as it cooks down into the broth.
Beef
Adds savory depth and flavor to the broth as it simmers until tender.
Oysters
Contribute briny flavor and their liquor adds seafood richness to the finished gumbo.

The step that matters

Serve when the mixture is thick and mucilaginous. Gumbo thickens as collagen from the meat and natural starches release during long cooking. Stopping too early leaves a thin broth, while the oysters added near the end can overcook and toughen if simmered too long.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, oyster):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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