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Okra Soup

A hearty soup made with beef or veal, okra, lima beans, tomatoes, onions, and seasonings, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 206 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the meat and water in a large pot.

  2. Season with salt and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Add the vegetables

  1. Add the okra and continue to cook for another hour.

  2. Add the Lima beans and cook for an additional hour.

  3. Add the cymlings, tomatoes, onions, and parsley. Cook for 2 more hours.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the butter and flour together, then stir the mixture into the soup.

  2. Cook until thickened.

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 + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Releases its natural mucilage, which gives the soup body and a silky texture as it cooks.
Beef, veal or fowl
Simmered for hours in water, it releases flavour and gelatin that enrich the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savoury depth to the broth as they break down during the long simmer.
Lima beans
Add starch and body, thickening the soup and contributing a mild, creamy flavour.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style mixture that thickens the soup and adds richness when stirred in.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the soup. Flour clumps if dropped in raw. Mixing it with butter first coats the particles so they disperse evenly, and the starch then thickens the liquid smoothly once it is cooked through.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, okra, tomato, onion, parsley, butter, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, okra, tomato, onion, parsley, butter, flour. 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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