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Soup

Gumbo Soup

A soup of cold meat and bones simmered with young corn, gumbo, and tomatoes, thickened with a butter and flour paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Take any kind of cold meat, such as cold roast beef, and cut it in small pieces.

  2. Put the meat and the bones into a pot, with as much water as you will need, early in the day. Let it boil slowly, keeping it well skimmed.

  3. Take young corn, gumbo, and tomatoes in equal parts and cut them fine. Add a little onion, just enough to taste, chopped celery, and salt to taste.

  4. Put these in the pot with the meat and let all boil very slowly.

  5. Have ready brown flour, brown sugar, a little wine or vinegar, and a large lump of butter seasoned with pepper, mustard and spice. Make these into a paste.

  6. Remove the bones from the pot before thickening with the paste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

764Calories
39 gProtein
19 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 13 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Shrimp100g cooked99
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0
Soupnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Crab + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Brown flour
Thickens the broth into a paste-based body when stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the seasonings through the paste.
Tomatoes (in the method)
Add acidity and body to the simmering broth.
Young corn (in the method)
Adds sweetness and body to the soup.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, cream, onion, parsley, butter, flour, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, cream, onion, parsley, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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