Name: Okra Soup
Ingredients: 2 plates of okra, sliced; 5 quarts of water; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Meat of your choice; 1.5 plates of tomatoes, peeled; Pepper, to taste

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

In a soup pot, combine sliced okra, water, and a little salt.

Cook the soup

Add your meat to the pot after 1 hour.
Peel and strain the tomatoes, then add them to the pot after 2 hours.
Season with pepper and salt, and let everything boil until ready to 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.

Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together327 recipes

Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together727 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Meat + tomatotop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,438 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Okra + meattop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together74 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).