Why it works: Tomato and okra work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Gumbo
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Fry the veal and ham until brown.
Fry the okra until it becomes ropy.
Make the gumbo
Mix the fried ingredients with the can of tomatoes in a 4-quart saucepan.
Add 2 to 3 pints of water and cook slowly, adding water gradually to achieve the desired consistency.
Pick the shrimp and add them while cooking.
Season with coarse sea salt and red pepper to taste.
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.
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Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together327 recipes
Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
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Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + okratop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together727 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Shrimp + okratop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together82 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Tomato + shrimptop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,689 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal
- Browning gives the meat savoury flavour that builds the base of the dish.
- Ham
- Browning adds smoky, savoury flavour to the base.
- Okra
- Its natural mucilage thickens the liquid and gives the gumbo its characteristic body.
- Tomatoes
- Add acidity and body, rounding out the flavour of the broth.
- Shrimp
- Adds sweet, delicate seafood flavour to the finished gumbo.
The step that matters
Fry the okra until it becomes ropy. Okra releases mucilage as it cooks. Frying until ropy helps reduce slipperiness and sets up the thickening the gumbo needs, so it should be cooked to that stage before combining.
Swap the okra
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, tomato, shrimp, pepper):
- Capsicumfits better
- Okrathe original
- Potatofits about as well
- Carrotfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, tomato, shrimp, 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.
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