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Beef and Okra Soup

A hearty soup of beef, okra, tomatoes, onions, peppers, Lima beans, and crab, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Okra and lima beans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Beef and Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the beef, bone, and cold water.

  2. Add salt, red pepper, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, okras, and Lima beans.

  3. Cover and gently simmer for 4 hours, ensuring it does not burn.

Add the crab and serve

  1. While the soup cooks, boil the crabs and remove the meat from the shells.

  2. After 4 hours, remove the beef bones, leaving the meat and marrow in the soup.

  3. Add the crab meat to the soup, adjusting thickness with boiling water if necessary.

  4. Season to taste 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. Okra + lima beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 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

Soup beef
Provides rich meat flavor and body as it simmers into the broth.
Okras
Release natural starch during long simmering, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that brighten the broth and balance the rich beef.
Lima beans
Add starch and a creamy texture that helps thicken the soup.
Hard-shell crabs
Add sweet, delicate seafood flavor and tender pieces of meat to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering without burning. Okra, beans and beef release starch and proteins over a long gentle simmer, and they can stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Low heat and occasional stirring keep the broth clean-tasting and evenly thickened.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, tomato, onion, okra, crab):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, tomato, onion, okra, crab. 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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