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Okra Soup

A soup made with chicken or veal, tomatoes, onions, okra, parsley, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Okra Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the chicken or veal with the water and bring to a boil, skimming off any grease.

  2. Add the tomatoes, parsley, onions, summer savory, allspice, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Prepare the soup at breakfast time.

Add the okra and serve

  1. Boil the sliced okra in a separate saucepan for 1 hour until tender.

  2. Half an hour before serving, strain the soup and add the cooked okra.

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. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Summer savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Okra + summer savorytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or veal
Gives the broth its meaty body and rich flavor.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a bright, savory flavor to the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Okra
Releases natural thickening starch as it cooks, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth as it comes to a boil. Fat and foam rising at the start can make the soup greasy and cloudy. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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