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Okra Gumbo

A stew of tomatoes, okra, onions, peppers, rice, and optional ham, simmered slowly with broth and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Okra Gumbo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and stew the onions for a few minutes without browning them.

  2. Add the tomatoes, okras, sweet pepper, broth, rice, ham (if using), and pepper.

Stew

  1. Stew gently, stirring frequently to prevent the rice from scorching.

  2. After 20 to 30 minutes, add more broth or boiling water as needed.

  3. Continue to stew for 4 to 6 hours on low heat, stirring often.

  4. If the gumbo is too thick, add more broth or tomato juice to reach desired consistency.

Serve

  1. For best flavor, reheat in a china-lined saucepan before serving.

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

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

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

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

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

Okras
Release natural thickening that gives the gumbo its body as they stew.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens during the long stew, thickening the gumbo further.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that build the savory tomato base of the stew.
Red onions
Provide sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the onions at the start of the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the stew frequently over long, low heat. Rice starch and sugars sit on the bottom of a pot and scorch easily during a long simmer, which can cause a burnt taste that spreads through the whole pot. Frequent stirring and low heat keep the rice dispersed and cooking evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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