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Oyster Gumbo

A gumbo made with chicken, onions, oysters, and filé powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Oyster Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sprinkle the cut chicken with flour and place it in a pot.

  2. Fry the chopped onion with the chicken until nearly done.

  3. Pour in 3 quarts of boiling water and boil until the chicken is tender.

  4. Add the oyster liquor, salt, pepper, and tomato sauce; boil for a short time.

  5. Add the oysters and boil for 5 minutes.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the filé powder.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Chicken
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the broth as it simmers until tender.
Oysters
Add the briny, delicate seafood flavor that defines this gumbo.
Oyster liquor
Adds concentrated oyster flavor and salinity to the broth.
File powder
Thickens the gumbo and adds an earthy, herbal flavor when stirred in off the heat.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and body, rounding out the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Add the file powder off the heat. Filé powder becomes stringy and can turn ropy or clumpy if boiled, so it should be stirred in after removing the pot from heat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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