Skip to main content
Main

Okra, or Gumbo Soup, with Chicken

A chicken and okra soup with ham, tomatoes, rice, and vegetables simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Okra, or Gumbo Soup, with Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and lightly fry the chicken pieces.

  2. Add the chopped onions and raw ham; cook for a few minutes.

  3. Moisten with the broth and bring to a boil, skimming off the grease.

  4. Add the bundle of parsley, celery, leek, salt, and pepper.

  5. Stir in the sliced green peppers and reduce heat to simmer.

  6. When the chicken is half cooked, add the quartered tomatoes, rice, and sliced okra.

  7. Continue to cook until everything is tender, then remove the bundle 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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 body of the gumbo as it simmers into tender meat.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, building a savory base for the broth.
Okra
Releases mucilage as it simmers, giving the gumbo its characteristic thickness.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, rounding out the flavor of the broth.
Carolina rice
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, adding body and starch to the gumbo.
Ham
Renders fat and savory flavor into the butter and broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the rice, tomatoes, and okra at half-cooked chicken. Adding these too early can overcook the okra into mush and let the rice swell until it breaks down. Timing them to the chicken keeps the vegetables tender but intact and the rice cooked through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, ham, parsley, celery, leek, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Turnipfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, ham, parsley, celery, leek, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes