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Okra Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, okra, tomatoes, onion, and optional eggs or corn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

  1. In a large pot, boil the beef or shank bone in 3 quarts of water until tender, skimming as needed.

  2. Add the chopped okra, prepared tomatoes, finely chopped onion, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let the soup boil for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. For added flavor, stir in the grated corn.

  5. If desired, add the chopped hard-boiled eggs before serving.

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 + tomatotop 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. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  4. Okra + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together161 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Okra
Releases a natural thickening starch that gives the soup body as it cooks.
Beef or shank bone
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long simmering.
Prepared tomatoes
Adds acidity and savory depth that balances the rich broth.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savory base flavor as it cooks.

The step that matters

Long simmer. Boiling the meat until tender depends on a steady, long simmer, since collagen only breaks down into gelatin slowly. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth, so keep the heat gentle once it is bubbling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, okra, tomato, pepper, egg, corn):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, okra, tomato, pepper, egg, corn. 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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