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Ochra Soup

A simple okra soup with onions, water, pepper, salt, and lima beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and lima beans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Ochra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the okra thin.

  2. Chop the onions finely.

Make the soup

  1. In an earthen pot or iron pot, combine the okra, onions, and water.

  2. Simmer steadily without boiling, adding pepper and salt.

  3. At noon, add the Lima beans.

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 + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

  2. Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + lima beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 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 its natural starch and mucilage, which thickens the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Lima beans
Add body and a mild, starchy texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer steadily without boiling. A hard boil can break down the okra too quickly and make the soup cloudy or uneven, while a gentle simmer lets the okra release its starch slowly and the flavors blend.

Swap the lima beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against okra, onion, 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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