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Creole Chicken and Oyster Fillet Gumbo

A gumbo made with chicken, oysters, onion, lard, flour, water, and fillet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Creole Chicken and Oyster Fillet Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat lard in a pot and brown the chopped onion.

  2. Add the chicken and fry for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour in the oyster juice and let it boil slowly for 30 minutes.

Finish the gumbo

  1. Add the oysters and 4 cups of water, then boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Before serving, dissolve the fillet in the pot.

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. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Chicken + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together972 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oyster + oniontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Oyster + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the gumbo its meat and savory flavor as it simmers in the broth.
Lard
Fat that browns the onion and carries flavor through the pot.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the gumbo becomes body-rich rather than watery.
Onion
Browning adds sweetness and deep aroma to the base.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savory flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Dissolve the fillet off the boil. Filé powder turns stringy and ropy when boiled, so it should be stirred in once the pot is no longer boiling. Adding it at the end, just before serving, keeps the texture smooth and the thickening even.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, oyster, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, oyster, 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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