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Gumbo Soup

A hearty stew of beef shin, okra, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and tomato work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Boil the shin of beef in water for 1 hour.

  2. Pour off the water and boil for another hour.

Simmer the gumbo

  1. Add coarse sea salt to taste.

  2. Add sliced okra, peeled tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.

  3. Boil everything together slowly for 5 hours to avoid scorching.

  4. Add boiled rice and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Shin of beef
Slowly releases flavor and body into the broth during long simmering.
Okra
Releases natural starch that thickens the broth as it cooks.
Peeled tomatoes
Add acidity and body, blending into the liquid to build flavor.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet, adding depth and aroma to the broth.
Green peppers
Contribute a fresh, slightly bitter aroma that softens during simmering.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the gumbo as it cooks in the final stage.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 5 hours. Thick mixtures containing starch and sugars stick to the pot and scorch at high heat. A gentle, slow boil spreads the heat evenly and keeps the bottom from burning while the flavors develop.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, okra, tomato, pepper, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, okra, tomato, pepper, 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.

More gumbo recipes

Chicken 45Soup 37Okra 30Oyster 21Crab 8French 8 See all 76 →

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