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New Orleans Gumbo

A gumbo made with turkey or fowl, beef, lard, onion, water, oysters, seasoning, and pulverized fillet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

New Orleans Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the turkey or fowl, beef, lard, onion, and enough water to cover the meat.

  2. Cook until the meat is tender.

  3. Add the oysters and their liquor, and season to taste.

  4. Heat the soup until it thickens.

  5. Stir in the pulverized fillet.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Turkey + beeftop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Turkey + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together540 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Turkey + oystertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey or fowl
Provides the main meat and rich flavour that forms the base of the soup.
Beef
Adds savoury depth and body to the broth as it cooks.
Lard
Carries fat-soluble flavours and gives the soup a rich mouthfeel.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the finished soup.
Pulverized fillet
Thickens the soup as it is heated and stirred in.

The step that matters

Stirring in the pulverized fillet. Filé powder thickens best when added off the heat or at a low simmer, because boiling it makes the soup stringy and ropy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, beef, meat, oyster):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, beef, meat, oyster. 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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