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Gumbo Soup

A hearty chicken and okra soup thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the chicken pieces until golden brown.

  2. Place the fried chicken in a pot with 1 gallon of water.

  3. Fry the chopped onions and bacon, then add to the pot.

Simmer and finish

  1. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2.5 hours.

  2. Add the sliced okra and stewed tomatoes, then boil for an additional hour.

  3. Stir in the sugar and thicken the soup with browned flour.

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

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

  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 flavor that the broth is built around.
Okra
Releases natural thickening that helps give the soup body.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Onions
Build savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the fried base.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that balance the rich broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with browned flour. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump, so it should be stirred in well to disperse evenly. Browning the flour first gives color and flavor, and it thickens only when its starch is hydrated and the soup is kept simmering long enough to cook through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, okra, tomato, sugar, flour. 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.

More gumbo recipes

Chicken 45Soup 37Okra 30Oyster 21Crab 8French 8 See all 76 →

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