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Gumbo Soup

A stew of chicken, okra, onion, bacon, tomatoes, parsley, and red pepper simmered in lard and water, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gumbo

  1. Fry the chicken, okra, onion, bacon, tomatoes, parsley, and red pepper in lard until browned.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pot of boiling water.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

Serve

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

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

  2. Okra + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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 savory meat flavor that enriches the broth.
Okra
Releases mucilage that thickens the gumbo broth as it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth once softened and browned in fat.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that builds savory flavor in the base.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and moisture that balance the rich, fatty flavors.
Red pepper
Adds sweetness, color, and fresh vegetable flavor to the pot.

The step that matters

Frying until browned. Browning the chicken and vegetables in lard creates Maillard flavors that carry into the broth. Pale frying yields a flatter, less rich gumbo, so the surfaces should be well coloured before the water goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (okra, chicken, tomato, parsley, pepper, rice):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against okra, chicken, tomato, parsley, 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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Chicken 45Soup 37Okra 30Oyster 21Crab 8French 8 See all 76 →

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