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Gumbo Soup

A stew of onion, ham, chicken, veal, gumbo, and spices simmered in water and served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a skillet, fry the onion and ham in butter until browned.

Cook

  1. Add the chicken, veal cutlet, and gumbo, then season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  2. Fry for 30 minutes, then transfer to a pot with boiling water.

  3. Boil for at least 1 hour, adding more boiling water if needed.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice.

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 + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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, which becomes tender and flavours the broth during long simmering.
Veal cutlet
Adds meat and body to the broth as it cooks slowly.
Gumbo
Thickens the broth as it cooks.
Onion
Softens and browns in butter, building sweetness and savoury depth.
Ham
Browns with the onion in butter, adding smoky, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the onion and ham in butter. Frying until browned develops deeper flavour through the Maillard reaction, which gives the broth a richer base. Pale onion and ham will make the finished dish taste flatter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, chicken, veal, pepper, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, chicken, veal, pepper, rice. 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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