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Salad

Okra and Endive Salad

A salad of boiled okra, endive, olives, pickled gherkins, garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and endive share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Okra and Endive Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the okra

  1. Boil the okra until tender.

  2. Immerse the okra in cold water.

  3. Drain the okra.

  4. Press the okra dry.

  5. Cut the okra pods in half lengthwise.

Arrange the salad

  1. Clean the endive.

  2. Arrange the endive on a salad plate as a bed.

  3. Arrange the cut okra pods cut side up on the endive.

Make the dressing

  1. Stone the olives.

  2. Chop the olives, pickled gherkins, and the clove of garlic.

  3. Mix the chopped ingredients with olive oil.

  4. Add a little strong cider vinegar to the mixture.

  5. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the salad.

  2. Sprinkle the salad with chopped sweet herbs.

  3. Serve.

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 + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Okra + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Okra
Provides the main body of the salad, with a tender texture once boiled.
Endive
Forms a crisp, bitter bed that contrasts with the softer okra.
Olives
Add salty, savoury richness to the chopped dressing mixture.
Pickled gherkins
Add sharp acidity and a briny bite to the dressing.
Olive oil
Carries the flavours of the chopped ingredients and adds richness.
Strong cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Press the okra dry. Excess water left on boiled okra dilutes the oil and vinegar dressing and stops it clinging to the pods. Drying thoroughly keeps the dressing flavourful and the salad from becoming watery.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (okra, endive, olive, garlic, cider, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against okra, endive, olive, garlic, cider, vinegar, 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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