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Winter Okra Soup

A hearty soup made with tomatoes, red pepper, butter, rice, ham, okra, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Winter Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and fry the chopped red pepper.

  2. Add the tomatoes, rice, and diced ham to the pot.

  3. Stew the mixture for 3 hours, stirring frequently.

  4. Add boiling water to prevent the soup from becoming too thick.

  5. Ten minutes before serving, add the okra.

  6. Bring to a boil and serve hot.

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. Rice + okratop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together250 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + okratop 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

Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid, forming the base of the soup.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and richness to the stewed base.
Okra
Adds vegetable body and a slight natural thickening to the soup.

The step that matters

Stewing with frequent stirring. Over three hours, rice starch and sugars can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring keeps the mixture even and prevents burning, while added boiling water controls thickness.

Swap the okra

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

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

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