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Chicken Gumbo

A soup of chicken, okra, tomatoes, onions, and spices simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and tomato work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 327 recipes. Both carry damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chicken Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a pot, brown the onion in the butter.

  2. Add the okra.

  3. Fry the okra until it ropes from a spoon, stirring constantly.

  4. Pour in the hot water.

  5. Boil the mixture down to 1 quart.

Add the rest and finish

  1. Peel and chop the tomatoes.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the soup.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and flour.

  4. Fry the chicken parts until light brown.

  5. Add the browned chicken to the soup half an hour before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Okra
Releases a natural thickener as it cooks, giving the soup body and a slightly viscous texture.
Butter
Fat that carries the flavor of the browned onion and helps it brown well.
Onion
Browns in the butter to build savory depth for the soup base.
Flour
Starch that helps thicken the soup and coat the chicken pieces.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and fresh flavor to the soup as it simmers.
Chicken
Provides the main meat and savory flavor, enriched by browning before it joins the soup.

The step that matters

Fry the okra until it ropes from a spoon. Okra must be stirred constantly while frying so it does not stick or scorch. Cooking it until it ropes releases its natural mucilage, which thickens the soup.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, okra, chicken, flour, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, okra, chicken, flour, 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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