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Soup

Gumbo Soup

A thick soup of tomatoes, okra, chicken and herbs, finished with egg yolks and lemon juice.

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.

  2. Add the okra, thyme, parsley, and onion to the tomatoes and cook until tender.

Prepare the chicken and egg mixture

  1. Fricassee the chicken in ham gravy.

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

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the chicken and add to the kettle with enough water to nearly fill it.

Simmer

  1. Boil everything together for four to five 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
Provide the main body and acidity that form the soup's base.
Okra
Releases natural thickening that gives the soup body as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the broth when combined with the hot liquid.
Chicken
Supplies the main protein and savory flavor, cooked in ham gravy.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the vegetable base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot kettle. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Tempering the yolks with some hot liquid first and stirring steadily helps keep the soup smooth and thick.

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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