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Ochra Gumbo

A hearty okra and tomato soup with chicken, onions, and optional beans, served with rice.

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

Ochra Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large pot, combine tomatoes and okra with water and bring to a boil.

  2. In a skillet, fry the chicken pieces until browned with plenty of gravy.

  3. Add the fried chicken to the pot with the tomatoes and okra.

  4. Stir in the chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

  5. If available, add corn and Lima beans for extra flavor.

Simmer and serve

  1. Let the mixture simmer gently for several hours.

  2. Serve each bowl with a tablespoon of boiled rice and a sprinkle of chopped green pepper.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Okra + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Okra
Releases natural thickening starch as it cooks, giving the gumbo body.
Chicken
Browning in the skillet builds savory flavor that carries into the pot.
Ripe tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid that balance the rich, browned chicken.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens during simmering.

The step that matters

Fry the chicken until browned. Browning creates Maillard flavor compounds in the meat and fond in the pan. Under-browned chicken gives a flat, pale broth, so the pieces should be well coloured before going into the pot.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, okra, chicken, pepper, rice. 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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