Skip to main content
Main

Baked Gumbo

A baked gumbo made with rice, okra, tomatoes, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Baked Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Wash the rice in cold water and drain.

Layer and bake

  1. In a baking dish, place a thin layer of rice.

  2. Add a layer of sliced okra, then a layer of sliced tomatoes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, curry powder, and add a small lump of butter.

  4. Repeat the layers of rice, okra, and tomatoes until the dish is filled.

  5. Cover the dish and bake until the rice is thoroughly cooked.

  6. Remove the cover and brown the top before serving.

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. Rice + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs moisture as it cooks, becoming tender.
Okra
Adds body and thickening as its natural starch releases during baking.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that cook down into the sauce around the rice.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping flavours carry and the top brown.

The step that matters

Cover the dish and bake until the rice is thoroughly cooked. Rice needs enough steam and time in a sealed dish to fully hydrate and soften. Removing the cover too early can leave the grains firm, while the uncovered top then needs watching so it browns without drying out.

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, tomato, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Okrathe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, pepper, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes