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Chicken Gumbo

A stew of chicken, onions, tomatoes, okra, and a roux in a reduced stock.

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

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cook the jointed chicken in 1 gallon of unsalted water for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Once the liquid is reduced by half, set aside the chicken in the stock until the next day.

  3. Skim off the fat and strain out the meat from the stock.

Finish the gumbo

  1. Season the stock with grated onion, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the chopped tomatoes and okra to the stock.

  3. Mix the butter with the flour and add to the pot.

  4. Cook for 45 minutes.

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. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and rich flavor that the stock is built on.
Okra
Releases natural thickening that gives the gumbo its body.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock and adds a toasty depth of flavor.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that balance the rich stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat before adding the vegetables. Fat left on the stock can make the gumbo greasy and dull the flavor. Removing it after the long simmer gives a cleaner broth before the roux and vegetables go in.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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