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Crab Gumbo Soup

A soup made with veal knuckle, onions, okra, crabs, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and okra match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 715 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Crab Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and sauté the onions and okra with salt and pepper until browned.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a large pot with the boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. When the mixture is half cooked, fry the crabs in butter and add them to the pot.

  2. Let the soup simmer for 5 hours until done.

  3. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + crabtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Crab + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 natural thickening that gives the gumbo its body as it simmers.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and savory depth in the base.
Crabs
Contribute rich seafood flavor to the broth as they cook through.
Butter
Carries the browning of the onions and okra and adds richness.
Veal knuckle
Adds gelatin and meaty body to the stock.

The step that matters

Browning the onions and okra. Sautéing until browned develops deep, roasted flavor through the Maillard reaction; pale vegetables produce a flatter soup. Okra also gives off slime, which is softened by thorough cooking.

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, crab, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Okrathe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, crab, butter, 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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