Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Gumbo

A stew of chicken, okra, tomato pulp, and onions simmered slowly in butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and dress the chicken, then cut it into serving portions.

  2. Dredge the chicken lightly with flour and sauté in melted butter with the chopped onion until browned.

Simmer

  1. Add the okra, tomato pulp, parsley, and water to the pot.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Cook slowly for about 2 to 2.5 hours until the chicken is tender and the okra is well-cooked, adding water as needed.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Okra + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Flour + okratop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewing chicken
Provides the main protein and rich flavor as it slowly cooks down in the broth.
Flour
Light dredge that browns during sautéing and helps thicken the gumbo liquid.
Butter
Fat for sautéing that carries flavor and helps the chicken brown.
Okra
Releases natural thickeners during long cooking, giving the gumbo body and a silky texture.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and moisture, building the savory base of the stew.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the chicken is tender. A low, gentle simmer breaks down the connective tissue in a stewing chicken, making the meat tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and break up the okra, and adding water as needed keeps the pot from drying out during the long cook.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, flour, butter, onion, okra, parsley, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, butter, onion, okra, parsley, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes