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Gumbo Or' Okra Soup

A stew of tomatoes, okra, onions, and bacon or ham in hot broth, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Or' Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the bacon or ham until the fat is rendered, then drain it.

  2. In the rendered fat, fry the sliced onion until brown.

  3. Scald, peel, and cut the fresh tomatoes, or use canned tomatoes.

  4. Cut the okra into thin slices.

Make the gumbo

  1. In a stew pot, combine the tomatoes, okra, and chopped parsley with the hot broth.

  2. Cook slowly for 3 hours, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  2. Okra + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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 gumbo body and a silky texture.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, and their sugars help build a rounded, savory flavor.
Onion
Browning in the rendered fat adds sweetness and depth to the base.
Bacon or fat ham
Its rendered fat carries flavor into the onion and seasons the whole pot.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that the vegetables simmer in, carrying savory flavor throughout.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets the okra soften and release its thickening starch while the flavors meld. Boiling hard can break down the vegetables unevenly and leave the broth cloudy or ragged.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, tomato, okra, parsley, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, tomato, okra, parsley, 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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