Skip to main content
Starter

Okra Stewed with Fine Herbs

A simple stew of okra simmered in boiling water, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Okra Stewed with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Cut off both ends of the okra and wash them in cold water.

  2. Place the okra in a saucepan with 1 pint of boiling water and a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Boil on a brisk fire until tender, then drain some of the liquid.

Finish

  1. Add a piece of butter and season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Okra + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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
Its pods become tender when boiled and give the stew its main body and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, then drain some of the liquid. Boiling on a brisk fire softens the okra fully, while draining part of the liquid keeps the stew thick rather than watery. Stopping too early leaves the pods firm, and draining too much can leave them dry.

Swap the okra

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley. 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.

You might also like

Deviled OystersDeviled Oysters25 recipes