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Chicken Gumbo

A chicken stew with ham, onion, tomatoes, and spices simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and aromatics

  1. Disjoint the chicken and fry it brown in hot lard.

  2. Fry the ham and sliced onion in the same lard.

Simmer and serve

  1. Put the chicken, ham, onion, and boiling water into a kettle.

  2. Boil slowly for 4 hours.

  3. Add the sliced gumbo, tomatoes, corn or celery tops, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  4. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Corn + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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 flavor that the long simmer draws into the broth.
Lard
Fat used to brown the chicken, adding richness and browned flavor to the pot.
Gumbo
Sliced gumbo, a vegetable that thickens the broth as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth as they break down during simmering.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky meat flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and browns in the fat.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours. A gentle, steady simmer over a long time lets the chicken become tender and its flavor fully release into the broth. A hard rolling boil can toughen the meat and cloud the liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, onion, tomato, corn, pepper, rice):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, onion, tomato, corn, 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.

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