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Okra and Corn

A fried okra and corn dish with milk and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and corn work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 161 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Okra and Corn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the pickled pork in a pan and remove it, leaving the grease.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Fry the okra for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the corn and fry thoroughly.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the flour and milk, then pour over the okra and corn.

  2. Fry for an additional 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper, and 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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together161 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Okra + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Forms the main body of the dish and gives a tender, slightly sticky texture when fried.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body as it cooks in the seasoned grease.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a light coating that binds the okra and corn together.
Milk
Combines with the flour to create a creamy sauce around the vegetables.
Pickled pork
Contributes savory, salty fat flavor to the grease the vegetables cook in.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk. Flour mixed with milk must be poured in and stirred so it coats evenly; if it clumps, lumps form instead of a smooth sauce, because flour starch needs to be dispersed before it thickens.

Swap the okra

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, milk, flour, pork, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, milk, flour, pork, 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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