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Old Time South Carolina Gumbo Soup

A thick soup made with okra, beef knuckle, tomatoes, onion, herbs, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Old Time South Carolina Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dice the okra.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, cook the okra for 1 hour, skimming off the foam often.

  2. Add the beef knuckle, mashed tomatoes, sliced onion, summer savory, parsley, sage, and thyme.

  3. Stir in the rice and boil for 2 more hours until the soup thickens.

  4. 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. Summer savory + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Summer savory + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Its natural pectin and mucilage thicken the soup as it cooks.
Beef knuckle
Releases collagen and meaty flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Ripe tomatoes
Add acidity and body, rounding out the broth's flavour.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and helps the soup thicken as it boils.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while the okra cooks. Foam rises from proteins and impurities released early in cooking. Removing it often keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than murky or bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (okra, beef, tomato, summer savory, parsley, sage, thyme):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against okra, beef, tomato, summer savory, parsley, sage, thyme. 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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