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Soup

Okra Gumbo

A tomato and okra soup with rice, optional ham, simmered slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and okra 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 Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and sauté the onions for a few minutes without browning.

Stew

  1. Add the tomatoes, rice, ham, okras, sweet pepper, and pepper to the pot.

  2. Stir gently and stew for 20 to 30 minutes, adding more broth or boiling water as needed.

  3. Stew very gently for 4 to 6 hours, stirring frequently to prevent scorching.

  4. If the soup is too thick, add more broth or tomato juice to reach desired consistency.

Serve

  1. Reheat in a china-lined saucepan if necessary 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. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rice + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

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

Okras
Release natural thickening that gives the gumbo its body as they cook down.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens during the long stew, adding body to the soup.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity that form the liquid base of the stew.
Red onions
Build a sweet, savoury aromatic base when softened in butter.
Butter
Carries the onion flavour and adds richness at the start of the pot.

The step that matters

Stewing very gently for 4 to 6 hours. Long, low heat lets the okra and rice break down and thicken the soup. Too much heat or too little stirring can scorch the bottom of the pot and make the flavour bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, ham, okra, pepper, sauce, 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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