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Okra Soup

A hearty soup made with mutton, okra, tomatoes, onions, green pepper, thyme, parsley, and optional boiled salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cover the leg of mutton with cold water.

  2. Add the okras and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Add the tomatoes, onions, green pepper, thyme, and parsley.

  4. Let it boil for 7 to 8 hours.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt and red pepper to taste.

  6. If desired, add a piece of boiled salt pork.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Okra + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 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

Leg of mutton
Provides the meat and rich, savory broth that forms the base of the soup.
Okras
Release natural thickening starch into the broth, giving the soup body as they cook.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, and break down to deepen the flavor of the broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Let it boil for 7 to 8 hours. A long, gentle simmer is needed to break down the tough mutton into tender meat and extract its flavor into the broth. Keep the liquid at a steady simmer and top up with water so the meat stays submerged and the soup does not reduce too far.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, okra, tomato, pepper, thyme, parsley, pork. 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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