Name: Vegetable Soup for Winter Use
Ingredients: 1 bushel skinned tomatoes; 1 peck okra, chopped; 6 red peppers, seeds removed; 8 teaspoons ground black pepper; 4 tablespoons coarse sea salt

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 ↓

Vegetable Soup for Winter Use

Ingredients

1 bushel skinned tomatoes
1 peck okra, chopped
6 red peppers, seeds removed
8 teaspoons ground black pepper
4 tablespoons coarse sea salt

Directions

Make the base

Cook the tomatoes, okra, and red peppers together with black pepper and salt until thickened to a marmalade consistency.
Transfer the mixture into hot, sterilized jars and seal for winter storage.

Serve

When ready to serve, add beef broth to taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
Boil the mixture to fully incorporate the broth.

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.

Tomato + okratop 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).