Why it works: Okra and tomato 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 ↓
Okra
Ingredients
Directions
Put the okra pods in salted boiling water.
Use a porcelain or tin-lined saucepan to avoid discoloration.
Boil for fifteen minutes.
Remove the stems and serve with butter, pepper, and vinegar if desired.
Alternatively, slice the boiled okra into rings, season with butter, dip in batter, and fry.
For a stew, combine equal quantities of sliced tomatoes and okra with one or two sliced green peppers, and cook for fifteen to twenty minutes.
Season with butter and pepper before serving.
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.
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Okra + tomatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together327 recipes
Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).
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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Okra + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together727 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,814 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Vinegar + tomatotop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,063 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the okra
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, vinegar, tomato):
- Capsicumfits better
- Cucumberfits better
- Potatofits about as well
- Okrathe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, vinegar, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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