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Gumbo Soup

A hearty soup made with squirrel, chicken, okra, potatoes, and spices, thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, cook the squirrels and chicken in water until the flesh falls from the bones.

  2. Add the sassafras buds in a bag to the pot.

  3. Stir in the okra, onion, potatoes, carrot, and cabbage.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Finish and thicken

  1. Once the soup is done, remove the bag and squeeze the contents into the soup.

  2. Add red pepper to taste and thicken the soup with browned flour.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Squirrels and chicken
Provide the meat that cooks down and flavours the broth as the flesh falls from the bones.
Okra
Releases natural thickening starch into the broth, giving the soup body and a silky texture.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, adding starch and body to the soup.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid, and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Sassafras buds
Infuse the broth with their distinctive aromatic flavour while the soup simmers in a bag.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour. Flour must be stirred into hot liquid gradually, or it clumps and forms lumps instead of thickening evenly. Browning the flour first adds toasty flavour, and it should be added near the end so the soup thickens without scorching.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, okra, onion, potato, carrot, pepper, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, okra, onion, potato, carrot, pepper, 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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