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Boiled Okra
1 quart of young white okra 1 tablespoonful of butter 1 tablespoonful of vinegar Salt and pepper to taste Wash the okra well in cold water, put into a porcelain lined or granite kettle (an iron kettle discolors the okra) with a half pint of water and a teaspoonful of salt. Cover the kettle and simmer gently thirty minutes; then add the butter, vinegar and pepper, and more salt if necessary, boil up once, and serve.
A plain boiled okra from the era before anyone worried about slime. The two things to attend to are the pot and the cooking time.
- The pot mattersOkra contains phenolic compounds that react with bare iron and darken the pods, which is what the recipe's warning is about. Enamelled steel, stainless or nonstick all do what the "porcelain lined or granite kettle" was for.
- QuantityA quart of whole young pods is roughly 1 lb, serving four as a side dish. "White okra" refers to the pale green-white cultivars once common in Southern gardens; ordinary green pods behave identically.
- Thirty minutes is too longThirty minutes is too long by modern taste -- Small pods left whole are tender in 8 to 12 minutes of gentle simmering. Half an hour gives collapsed, mucilaginous okra, which is evidently what this recipe intends but is not what most cooks want now.
- Keep the pods wholeTrim only the stem cap, leaving the pod sealed. Cut okra releases far more mucilage into the water; whole pods stay comparatively firm.
- The vinegar is doing workAcid cuts the sliminess as well as seasoning the dish. Cider or white wine vinegar both suit it; add it at the end as written, since a long acid simmer toughens the pods.
- Water levelA half pint (1 cup) for a quart of pods is a shallow braise rather than a boil, and much of it may cook away. Check the pan partway and add a splash if it threatens to scorch.
- ServingServe hot, with the small amount of buttery liquor spooned over. It is also good chilled and dressed with a little more vinegar and oil.
Okra came to the American South with the transatlantic slave trade from West Africa, where the plant and several of its names originate; "okra" is generally traced to Igbo okuru, while "gumbo" comes from Bantu words for the same pod. By the late nineteenth century it was thoroughly established in Southern kitchen gardens, and it appeared in cookbooks both as a plain boiled vegetable and in soups and stews. Its appeal in hot weather is straightforward: okra is a high-summer crop that fruits when other vegetables have given up, and this preparation asks for nothing more than a covered pan and thirty minutes at a low simmer, with no oven lit.