Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Gumbo with Oysters

A gumbo made with chicken, okra, ham, and oysters simmered in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chicken Gumbo with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and season with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Fry the chicken in lard or drippings until browned.

  3. Remove the chicken and fry the okra in the same fat until well browned.

  4. Return the chicken to the pot and add the ham.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in boiling water and let it boil down to three pints.

  2. Ten minutes before serving, add the oysters and their liquor.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve with well-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. Okra + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Flour + okratop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + okratop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 browns in the fat to add savory flavor to the broth.
Okra
Releases a thickening starch as it cooks, giving the gumbo body and a silky texture.
Oysters
Add briny, delicate seafood flavor, and they cook quickly so they stay tender.
Flour
Coats the chicken and browns in the fat, adding color and helping thicken the broth.
Ham
Adds smoky, salty meatiness that deepens the overall flavor of the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters. Oysters overcook quickly, becoming rubbery and shrinking. Adding them only about ten minutes before serving and bringing the pot just to a boil keeps them plump and tender.

Swap the okra

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

  1. Okrathe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, flour, ham, oyster, 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipes