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Gumbo Filie, for 6 or 8 Persons

A gumbo of chicken, tomatoes and celery, thickened with filé powder and flavoured with a bag of herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Gumbo Filie, for 6 or 8 Persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat lard in a frying pan until boiling hot, then add the chicken and a slice of ham.

  3. Fry until the chicken is nicely browned.

Simmer the gumbo

  1. In a large pot, bring 1 gallon of water to a boil (or use stock).

  2. Add the browned chicken, tomatoes, celery, and the muslin bag of herbs and spices.

  3. Boil for 4 hours (or 3 hours if using stock).

  4. A few minutes before finishing, add oysters, shrimp, or crabs, and stir in the filé powder until thickened to your liking.

  5. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and flavour, with browning adding savoury depth to the broth.
Filé powder
Thickens the broth as it is stirred in near the end, giving the gumbo its body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth, balancing the rich lard and meat.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savoury flavour as it simmers for hours into the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the filé powder. Filé thickens quickly and can turn stringy or clumpy if it boils for long. Adding it off the heat or just before finishing, then letting it thicken gently, keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, garlic, tomato, celery, laurel, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, garlic, tomato, celery, laurel, parsley. 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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