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Gumbo Soup

A tomato and okra stew with chicken, ham gravy, and egg yolk, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a porcelain kettle, stew the tomatoes until soft.

  2. Cut the okra into fine shreds and add it to the tomatoes along with thyme, parsley, and the chopped onion.

  3. Cook until the okra and onion are tender.

Cook the chicken

  1. Fricassee the chicken in ham gravy until cooked through.

Finish and simmer

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with vinegar and lemon juice, then season to taste.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the chicken and combine with the tomato mixture.

  3. Add enough water to nearly fill the kettle and boil everything together for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Okra + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Okra + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down into a soft base that gives the soup its body and tangy flavor.
Okra
Releases a natural thickening starch that gives the soup a silky, slightly viscous texture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the soup when combined with the hot mixture, adding richness.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory meaty flavor, cooked gently in ham gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid directly. Combining them with the acid first and blending them into the soup gradually helps keep the mixture smooth and thickened rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, okra, thyme, parsley, chicken, ham, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, okra, thyme, parsley, chicken, ham, egg. 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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