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Soup

Okra, or Gumbo Soup, with Chicken

A soup of chicken, ham, tomatoes, rice and sliced okra, thickened with okra and flavoured with parsley, celery and leek.

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

Make the base

  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.

  4. Skim off the grease.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the faggot of parsley, celery, leek, salt, and pepper.

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

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

  4. Cook until everything is tender, skim the soup, remove the faggot, 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 soup as it cooks in the broth.
Okra
Releases mucilage that helps thicken the soup and gives it its gumbo character.
Carolina rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, adding body and thickening the soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, rounding out the flavor of the broth.
Raw ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the base as it cooks with the onions.
Onions
Build a sweet, aromatic base when cooked slowly in fat.

The step that matters

Add the okra and rice when the chicken is half cooked. Okra and rice cook quickly and can turn mushy or dissolve into the broth if added too early. Adding them at mid-cook lets the chicken finish while they become tender without overcooking.

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.

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