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Okra, or Gumbo Soup

A chicken and okra soup simmered with stock, water, and a roux of salt pork, onion, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Okra, or Gumbo Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the pork and onion.

  2. Fry the pork.

  3. Add the onion and okra to the pork.

  4. Cover the pan.

  5. Fry for 30 minutes.

  6. Press out excess pork fat.

  7. Stir in the flour in the remaining fat until brown.

  8. Add the flour mixture to the pot.

Make the soup

  1. Remove the meat from the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken bones in a pot with water.

  3. Add the okra and onion to the pot.

  4. Cover the pot.

  5. Simmer for 3 hours.

  6. Strain the soup through a sieve.

  7. Add stock to the strained soup.

  8. Add salt to the soup.

  9. Add pepper to the soup.

  10. Add the chicken meat cut into small pieces.

  11. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Okra + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Okra + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the gumbo and adds a toasty, nutty flavour.
Okra
Releases mucilage as it cooks, which helps thicken the gumbo and gives it body.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat carries flavour and fries the onion and okra into the base.
Stock
Forms the liquid body of the gumbo, carrying flavour from the chicken and pork.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour in the fat until brown. Browning flour in fat makes a roux that thickens the soup and adds nutty flavour. Stop too early and it stays pale and tastes raw; go too far and it scorches and turns bitter, so stir constantly over moderate heat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, okra, pepper, flour. 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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