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Gumbo Soup

A hearty soup made with salt pork, onions, chicken, ham, gumbo, corn, tomatoes, and red pepper, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Fry the salt pork in a large pot until done.

  2. In the same fat, fry the onions until golden.

  3. Cut up and fry the chicken until browned.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the chicken, ham, and water to the pot.

  2. When it boils, add the sliced gumbo, corn, tomatoes (if using), and red pepper.

  3. Do not add salt.

  4. Keep adding boiling water as it evaporates.

  5. Simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

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. Pork + chickentop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 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. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 savoury flavour that the broth is built on.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet and golden in the fat, adding depth to the soup's base.
Sliced gumbo
Okra thickens the broth as it simmers, giving the soup its characteristic body.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat carries the flavour for frying the onions and chicken.

The step that matters

Keep adding boiling water as it evaporates. Over a 5 to 6 hour simmer the liquid reduces steadily. Replacing it with boiling water keeps the volume and concentration steady, so the soup does not scorch or become overly thick.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, chicken, ham, corn, pepper):

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

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