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Okra Soup

A beef and okra soup with tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Make the broth

  1. Put the upper part of the shin of beef in a pot and cover with water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

Cook the soup

  1. At 1 PM, add the okra and tomatoes.

  2. Boil together until one hour before dinner.

  3. Remove the bone and meat, then let the soup simmer until just before dinner at 6:30 or 7 PM.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Upper part of shin of beef
Its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the broth body and a rich, meaty flavor.
Okra
Releases mucilage during long cooking, thickening the soup and giving it a silky texture.
Peeled tomatoes
Add acidity, liquid and savory sweetness that balance the rich beef broth.

The step that matters

Long simmering of the okra. Okra is cooked for hours here, so it can soften to mush and lose its shape. A gentle simmer, not a hard boil, keeps the pieces intact while the mucilage thickens the soup.

Swap the okra

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Okrathe original

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