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Oyster Gumbo

A gumbo made with chicken, beef, ham, oysters, onions, herbs, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Oyster Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Dust the chicken, beef, and ham pieces with flour.

Make the gumbo

  1. In a large pot, fry the meat in fresh butter until light brown.

  2. Pour in enough warm water to make about 2 quarts of soup.

  3. Add the onion and let it boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in the oysters, thyme, parsley, black pepper, and salt.

  5. Just before serving, sprinkle in the fillet to thicken, stirring well.

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 + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the base meat flavor that gives the soup its savory depth.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavor and body as it simmers into the broth.
Fat ham
Contributes smoky, salty richness and fat that carries flavor through the soup.
Butter
Fat used for frying the meat, promoting browning and rich flavor.
Oysters
Add briny, delicate seafood flavor and tender texture to the soup.
Fillet
Thickens the soup as it is stirred in near the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the fillet just before serving. Filé powder thickens by releasing starch-like gums; if it boils for long, it becomes stringy and ropy, so it should be stirred in off the heat or just before serving.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, beef, ham, flour, butter, onion, oyster):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef, ham, flour, butter, onion, 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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