Skip to main content
Main

Gumbo Soup

A tomato and okra stew with chicken, egg yolks, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew the tomatoes in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Add the okra, thyme, parsley, and onion to the tomatoes and cook until tender.

  3. Fricassee the chicken in ham gravy.

Finish and simmer

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with vinegar, lemon juice, and seasoning.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the chicken and add to the tomato mixture.

  3. Fill the kettle nearly with water and boil all together for 4 to 5 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Okra + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Tomatoes
Break down into the liquid base that gives the gumbo its body and acidity.
Okra
Releases mucilage that thickens the broth and gives it a silky texture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the acid and enrich the broth, adding richness and body.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, cooked in ham gravy to add savory depth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid too abruptly. Stirring the mixture into the chicken and tomatoes gently keeps the yolks smooth and evenly thickening.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, okra, thyme, parsley, chicken, ham, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, okra, thyme, parsley, chicken, ham, egg. 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 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes