Skip to main content
Main

Okra Soup

A soup made with chicken, onions, middling meat, tomatoes, and okra.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and okra 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 ↓

Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Fry and simmer

  1. Fry the chickens, onions, and middling meat in a skillet until cooked.

  2. Pour water over the mixture.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pot, filling it two-thirds full.

  4. Add the tomatoes.

  5. Let the soup cook.

Cook the okra

  1. In a separate saucepan, cook the okra.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the soup through a colander to remove the bones.

  2. Return the soup to the pot.

  3. Add the tomatoes and pieces of middling.

  4. Pull the chicken into small pieces.

  5. Bring the soup back to a boil.

  6. Add the cooked okra.

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

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

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

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provides the main meat and savory flavor that builds the body of the broth.
Okra
Releases mucilage that thickens the soup and adds a silky texture.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, rounding out the broth's flavor.
Onions
Add aroma and sweetness as they cook down in the fat.
Middling meat
Adds fat and salty, smoky savory flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Add the cooked okra. Okra thickens the soup through its natural mucilage, but overcooking it breaks it down into a slimy, mushy texture. Cooking it separately and adding it near the end keeps it intact while still thickening the broth.

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, meat, tomato):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrathe original
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, meat, tomato. 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 okra soup recipes

Beef 7 See all 84 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipes