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Okra Soup

A preserved soup made from sliced okra, rice, and seasoned stock, canned in jars or tins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 250 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the okra and rice

  1. Blanch the sliced okra in boiling water for 10 minutes, then cool in cold water.

  2. Boil the rice in water for 25 minutes until tender.

  3. Mix the blanched okra and cooked rice together.

Fill and seal

  1. Fill jars or cans halfway with the okra and rice mixture.

  2. In a large pot, combine the soup stock, salt, coriander seed, and powdered cloves, and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the boiling soup stock into the jars or cans to fill them completely.

  4. Partially seal the glass jars or cap the tin cans.

Process

  1. Process the jars in a hot-water bath for 2 hours, or use a water-seal outfit for 90 minutes, a 5-lb steam-pressure outfit for 75 minutes, or a pressure cooker for 60 minutes.

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 + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

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

  2. Okra + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Rice + coriandertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,854 recipes

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

  4. Coriander + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Okra + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 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

Okra
Provides the main vegetable body and the thickening texture of the soup.
Rice
Adds starch and bulk, absorbing liquid and giving the soup a heartier texture.
Soup stock
Supplies the liquid base that carries the flavour and fills the jars.

The step that matters

Fill the jars completely with boiling stock. Filling with boiling liquid drives out air and helps form a vacuum seal as jars cool. Headspace left empty can let air remain, which risks spoilage during storage.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (okra, rice, coriander):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against okra, rice, coriander. 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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