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Chicken and Okra

A stew of chicken, ham, tomatoes, onions, okra, and spices served with boiled rice.

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

Chicken and Okra

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and make the gravy

  1. Brown the chicken pieces in a pot with the diced ham.

  2. Remove the chicken and set aside.

  3. In the same pot, make a gravy with flour.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped tomatoes, onions, salt, pepper, parsley, cloves, and bay leaf.

  2. Return the chicken to the pot and stew slowly for 2.5 hours.

  3. Twenty minutes before the chicken is done, add the okra.

Serve

  1. Serve with a border of 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein and, as it stews, its meat becomes tender and flavours the gravy.
Ham
Browning in the pot adds savoury, smoky flavour that carries into the stew.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy by starch gelatinising as it heats.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that help build the body of the stew.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during the long stew.
Okra
Adds body and thickening as its natural mucilage releases into the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the okra late. Okra added too early breaks down and turns slimy and mushy over a long stew. Adding it about twenty minutes before the end keeps its shape and texture while still thickening the liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, tomato, onion, pepper, parsley, okra):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, tomato, onion, pepper, parsley, okra. 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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