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Soup

Chicken Gumbo

A tomato-based chicken soup with rice, thyme, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the chicken broth, stewed tomatoes, rice, and thyme.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook until the rice is very soft and the soup has a creamy consistency, about 1½ hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the diced chicken a few minutes before serving to prevent it from becoming unsightly.

  2. Strain the soup and serve with croutons.

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 + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base that the rice softens in and carries the soup's flavor.
Rice
Its starch breaks down during simmering, thickening the soup to a creamy texture.
Stewed tomatoes
Adds acidity and body, balancing the richness of the broth.
Diced cooked chicken
Supplies the meat; it is already cooked, so it only needs heating through.

The step that matters

Add the diced chicken a few minutes before serving. The chicken is already cooked. Prolonged simmering toughens cooked meat and makes it stringy and dry, so it should be added late and kept just hot enough to warm through.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Corianderfits better
  2. Basilfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, rice, pepper, sugar. 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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