Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Okra
Ingredients
Directions
Trim both ends of the okra.
Boil the okra in salted water until tender.
Drain the okra and season with salt, pepper, and melted butter.
Serve as a vegetable or garnish.
For a slippery texture, place trimmed okra in a pan with a little water, cover with oiled paper, and stew until tender.
Season with olive oil, salt, pepper, and minced peppers.
For a tomato dish, stew whole okra with peeled, quartered tomatoes, butter, pepper, and salt.
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.
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Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,539 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together327 recipes
Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together727 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Okra + olivetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together228 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the okra
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, olive, tomato):
- Capsicumfits better
- Eggplantfits better
- Potatofits better
- Okrathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, olive, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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