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Winter Okra Soup

A tomato and ham soup with okra, rice, and onions, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Fry the chopped onions until translucent.

  3. Add the diced ham and red pepper pod. Cook for a few minutes.

  4. Stir in the tomatoes and rice. Stew for 3 hours, stirring frequently.

  5. Add boiling water as needed to prevent the soup from becoming too thick.

  6. Add the okra.

  7. Bring the soup to a boil.

  8. Ensure the soup is thicker than pea soup.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rice + okratop 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

Tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid body that builds the soup's base flavor.
Rice
Releases starch during long stewing, thickening the soup.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor and fat that enriches the broth.
Okra
Releases mucilage that adds body and thickens the soup.
Onions
Softened by frying, they add sweetness and aromatic depth.

The step that matters

Stew for 3 hours, stirring frequently. Long, gentle simmering lets the rice release starch and the flavors meld. Stirring prevents rice and tomatoes from scorching on the bottom of the pot, and adding boiling water keeps the thickness under control.

Swap the onion

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

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

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