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Gumbo Soup

A tomato and okra gumbo with chicken, egg yolks, herbs, and lemon, simmered for hours.

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

  1. Stew the tomatoes in a porcelain kettle.

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

Prepare the chicken and egg

  1. Fricassee the chicken in gravy.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with vinegar and lemon juice, then season to taste.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the chicken and add everything to the tomatoes.

Simmer

  1. Fill the kettle nearly with water and boil 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
Form the stewed base that gives the gumbo its body and bright flavor.
Okra
Releases natural thickening gel as it cooks, giving the gumbo body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the mixture as they cook, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, cooked tender in gravy and simmered into the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Mixing a little hot liquid into the yolks first, or adding them gently off the heat, keeps them smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

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

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

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