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Soup

Stocks and Soups

A hearty soup thickened with corn flour, flavored with ham or bacon, okra, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Stocks and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Put the ham or bacon in a pan with the celery, onion, tomato ketchup, herbs, and seasoning. Cook slowly, covered, for 20 minutes.

  2. Add the stock, bring to a boil, and skim well. Remove the ham, add the okra, and cook slowly for 30 minutes, skimming often.

Thicken and finish

  1. Stir in the corn flour mixed with cold stock to form a paste, and season with more salt and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the minced meat, ensuring it is free from fat and gristle. Heat through without boiling for 10 minutes.

  3. For a richer soup, use stock No. 7 and add egg yolks and cream just 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. Onion + okratop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together715 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Celery + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

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

  5. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn flour
Thickens the soup into a smooth, lightly body-rich consistency when stirred in as a paste.
Okra
Releases natural gum during slow simmering, adding body and a silky texture to the soup.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the savoury flavour of the broth.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup with fat and emulsifiers, giving a richer, smoother mouthfeel when added at the end.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, softer mouthfeel when stirred in just before serving.

The step that matters

Adding the corn flour paste. Corn flour must be mixed smoothly with cold stock before adding, because starch dropped into hot liquid clumps. Once stirred in, the soup needs to be brought to a boil so the starch swells and thickens fully.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, ham, celery, tomato, ketchup, okra):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, ham, celery, tomato, ketchup, 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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