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Okra and Tomato

A stew of okra, tomatoes, and green peppers seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Okra and Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice young tender okra pods crosswise.

  2. Peel and slice enough ripe tomatoes to equal one-third the volume of the sliced okra.

  3. Slice one or two green peppers.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew the okra, tomatoes, and green peppers together until cooked.

  2. Season with butter, pepper, and salt, then serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra pods
Provides the main body of the stew and a natural thickening from its mucilage as it cooks.
Ripe tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that help form the stew's liquid and blend its flavours.
Green peppers
Add a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavour and some texture to the stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour at the end of cooking.

The step that matters

Stew until cooked. Stewing gently until the okra is tender lets its mucilage thicken the liquid, while overcooking can turn the pods mushy and dull the colour.

Swap the okra

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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