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Gumbo Soup

A hearty stew of veal, okra, ham, crabs, and tomatoes simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Brown the base

  1. Fry the knuckle of veal in butter with salt and pepper, along with chopped onions.

  2. Once the veal is browned, add the okra and ham.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and cook until half done.

Add crabs and tomatoes

  1. Fry the crabs in butter with salt and pepper until browned, then add to the pot.

  2. About 2 hours before serving, add the tomatoes.

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. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + okratop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Its natural mucilage thickens the broth as it cooks down.
Veal knuckle
Gelatin from the bones enriches the broth and gives it body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that brighten and loosen the stew.
Crabs
Browning in butter first adds savory, roasted flavor to the pot.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the veal and crabs in butter. Deep browning develops roasted, savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pale frying leaves the stock tasting flat, so the meat should be well coloured before liquid goes in.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, onion, okra, ham, crab):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, onion, okra, ham, crab. 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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