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Gumbo Fixe

A gumbo made with chicken, ham, tomatoes, oysters, and file powder, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gumbo Fixe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Joint the chicken and place it in a soup pot with hot water.

  2. Fry the chicken until light brown, then add the pieces to the soup pot.

  3. Fry the onion, ham, tomatoes, and parsley together, then add to the chicken.

Simmer and strain

  1. Cook slowly for 6 hours.

  2. Remove some good pieces of breast and place them in a tureen.

  3. Strain the soup, then add salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Plump the oysters by heating them with butter, then add them to the tureen.

  2. Stir in enough file powder to thicken the gumbo.

  3. Pour the gumbo over the oysters and chicken, and serve immediately with a tablespoon of boiled rice in each plate.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and, as it cooks slowly, flavours the broth.
Oysters
Add briny, tender seafood flavour and a soft texture when gently plumped in butter.
File powder
Thickens the gumbo, giving it body as it is stirred in at the end.
Ham
Adds smoky, savoury depth to the broth as it cooks with the aromatics.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic base to the broth once fried.

The step that matters

Stirring in the file powder. File powder thickens by starch and gel formation when it is stirred into liquid. Boiling it can make the gumbo stringy or ropy, so it should be added off the heat or at a gentle simmer.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, ham, tomato, pepper, oyster, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, ham, tomato, pepper, oyster, butter. 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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