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Okra Stewed With Tomatoes
1 quart of okra 1 tablespoonful of butter I/ pint of tomatoes Salt and pepper to taste Wash the okra, and cut in thin slices. Peel the tomatoes, and cut in slices. Put both in a porcelain lined or granite kettle, add one teaspoonful of salt, cover the kettle, and simmer gently for a half hour; then add the butter and pepper, and more salt if necessary.
A plain summer stew that depends almost entirely on the okra being young and the pot being non-reactive. The quantities are simple once the printing is untangled.
- Reading the amountsThe "I" characters are the numeral 1 as set in the original type: 1 quart of okra, 1 tablespoon butter. The tomato line, printed here as "I/ pint," is almost certainly 1/2 pint — about a cup — though a full pint would not hurt the dish.
- A quart of okraMeasured whole and untrimmed, a quart of pods is somewhere in the region of three-quarters of a pound to a pound, depending on pod size. Sliced thin they will cook down to very little; this serves about four as a side dish.
- Choose small podsOkra over about four inches turns woody at the ridges no matter how long it simmers. Pods that snap cleanly when bent are tender; ones that bend without breaking should be left behind.
- Why the pot matters"Porcelain lined or granite" means enamelled ironware — the period's non-reactive cookware. Okra and tomatoes are both acidic and will pick up a metallic taste and grey colour from bare cast iron or unlined aluminium. Enamel, stainless steel or glazed earthenware all work.
- Peeling the tomatoesCut a shallow cross in the base, drop into boiling water for 20 to 30 seconds, then into cold water; the skins slip off. Canned whole tomatoes, drained and sliced, are a fair substitute out of season.
- The half hourThirty minutes at a bare simmer gives the okra time to release its mucilage into the tomato liquid, which tends to thicken the stew rather than leave it stringy. Keep the heat low and the lid on; a hard boil will break the slices apart.
- Butter lastThe recipe adds the tablespoon of butter and the pepper only at the end, after the vegetables have stewed, rather than at the start.
Okra came to the American South through the Atlantic slave trade from West Africa, where the plant and several of its names ki ngombo and its relatives, generally accepted as the source of the word "gumbo" originate. By the late nineteenth century it was a fixture of Southern and Creole cooking and had migrated into Northern household manuals as a summer vegetable: the pods ripen in the worst of the heat, and the dish is cooked in one covered pot with no oven lit. The pairing with tomatoes is among the most durable ways of serving it in America, and the reason is practical as much as culinary the acid and liquid of the tomatoes carry the okra's mucilage into a smooth thickened sauce instead of leaving it in ropes.