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Chicken Gumbo

A soup of chicken, vegetables, and rice simmered in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gumbo

  1. Boil the chicken in 2 quarts of water with the bay leaf, thyme, and peppercorns until very tender.

  2. Just before the chicken is done, add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  3. Remove the chicken from the stock and cut it into small pieces.

  4. Add the carrots, onion, okra, chili peppers, bacon, potatoes, and tomatoes to the stock.

  5. When the vegetables are done, add the chicken back into the pot.

Cook the rice

  1. In a separate pot, wash and drain the rice, then sprinkle it into 3 quarts of boiling salted water.

  2. Boil the rice for 20 minutes, then drain and place it on a hot platter.

Serve

  1. To serve, place a heaping spoon of rice in a soup plate and pour the hot gumbo around it.

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 + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Thyme + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 and flavorful stock as it simmers until tender.
Okra
Releases natural thickening starch into the stock, giving the gumbo body.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor to the stock and vegetables.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, building the body and brightness of the stew.
Rice
Serves as a starchy base that soaks up the gumbo alongside it.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, becoming tender and thickening the stew slightly.

The step that matters

Adding the salt near the end of cooking. Salt added just before the chicken is done seasons the stock without over-concentrating it as it reduces, and gives more even flavor than salting at the start of a long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, thyme, carrot, okra, pepper, potato, tomato. 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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