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Chicken Gumbo

A stew of chicken, okra, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and bacon in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces ready to fry.

  2. In a large skillet, fry the bacon until the grease is rendered.

  3. Remove the bacon and dredge the chicken in flour.

  4. Sauté the chicken in the bacon grease until browned.

Cook the chicken and vegetables

  1. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the chicken and cook until it falls off the bone.

  2. In another pot, cook the vegetables with 2 quarts of water until tender.

  3. Once the chicken is ready, shred it and add it along with its cooking liquid to the vegetables.

  4. Thicken the gumbo, season to taste, and serve.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 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 protein and, as it simmers, flavors the broth.
Okra
Releases natural mucilage that helps thicken the gumbo.
Flour
Coats the chicken so it browns well and helps thicken the gumbo.
Bacon
Its rendered grease fat adds savory flavor for browning the chicken.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth.
Potatoes
Add starch that softens and helps give the gumbo body.

The step that matters

Browning the floured chicken in bacon grease. Floured pieces brown unevenly if the fat is not hot enough or the pan is crowded, which leaves pale patches and less flavor. Browning in batches creates the Maillard reaction that builds savory depth in the final gumbo.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, okra, tomato, corn, potato, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, okra, tomato, corn, potato, flour. 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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