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Stewed Okra

A simple stew of okra and tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

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 ↓

Stewed Okra

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the okra and cut it into pieces crosswise.

Stew

  1. Place the okra in a granite stew pan and cover with salted boiling water.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the peeled and chopped tomatoes and stew for an additional 10 minutes.

Season and serve

  1. Season with butter, pepper, and more salt if needed.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Its natural mucilage thickens the cooking liquid, giving the stew body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, rounding out the flavor and loosening the stew.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding the flavor at the end.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer softens the okra evenly without breaking it apart or scorching the bottom of the pan. Vigorous boiling can break the pieces down into a mushy texture.

Swap the okra

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Okrathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, 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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