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Chicken Gumbo

A stew of chicken, okra, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and bacon in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and tomato 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

Prepare

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces ready to fry.

  2. In a large skillet, fry the bacon until the grease is rendered. Remove the bacon from the skillet.

  3. Dredge the chicken pieces in flour.

Cook the chicken

  1. Sauté the chicken in the bacon grease until browned.

  2. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the chicken and cook until it falls from the bone.

  3. Once the chicken is ready, shred it.

Make the gumbo and serve

  1. In another pot, add the vegetables and 2 quarts of water. Cook the vegetables until tender.

  2. Add the shredded chicken and its cooking liquid to the vegetables.

  3. Thicken the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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 main protein and flavorful cooking liquid that becomes the gumbo base.
Bacon
Its rendered fat browns the floured chicken and adds smoky richness.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns well and helps thicken the gumbo.
Okra
Releases mucilage as it cooks, helping to thicken and give body to the gumbo.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that balance the richness of the fat and broth.
Onion
Builds savory depth as it softens into the vegetable base.

The step that matters

Brown the floured chicken in bacon grease. Flour dredging and hot fat create a browned crust through the Maillard reaction. If the pan is crowded or not hot enough, the chicken steams and turns pale, losing flavor and color.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, okra, tomato, corn, potato, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, okra, tomato, corn, potato, flour, 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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