Home › Vegetables › Okra with Rice
Okra with Rice
1 cup of rice 1 quart of okra ½ pound of ham I red pepper 1 pint of white stock I onion 1 tablespoonful of powderea dry sassafras leaves 1 pint of tomatoes Wash the okra, and cut in thin slices. Cut the ham into dice and fry it until brown. Peel and cut the tomatoes, put them into a porcelain lined or granite kettle with the okra, ham, stock, the pepper cut in small pieces, and onion cut in slices; cover the kettle, and simmer gently for a half hour. While this cooks, wash and boil the rice. When the okra is done, add the salt, pepper and sassafras leaves (called filée), let it boil up once, and serve with the rice around the dish.
A gumbo in all but name, served with the rice ringed around the dish rather than under it. The measurements are straightforward once the fractions are read correctly.
- Filé is the hingePowdered sassafras leaf thickens by swelling in hot liquid, and it turns stringy and ropy if boiled. Despite the instruction to "let it boil up once," pull the pot off the heat first, stir the filé in, and let it stand a minute or two.
- QuantitiesRead the ham as half a pound, and the rest as one each: 1 cup rice, 1 quart okra, 1 pint stock, 1 pint tomatoes, 1 onion, 1 red pepper, 1 tablespoon filé.
- White stockAn unbrowned veal or chicken stock. Any light chicken stock works; avoid a dark brown beef stock, which will overwhelm the okra.
- The red pepperMost likely a hot red pepper rather than a sweet bell; whether fresh or a dried pod, the recipe does not say. One whole pepper cut small is assertive; adjust to taste, and taste before adding more.
- Porcelain-lined or granite kettleThe warning is about reactive metal. Enameled cast iron or stainless steel; unlined cast iron or aluminum will dull the tomatoes and darken the okra.
- Okra and slimeSlice the okra thin as directed, but keep the pods dry until cutting and do not crowd the pot. Thirty minutes of gentle simmering with acidic tomato is enough to soften them without reducing the whole to mucilage.
- RiceBoiled separately, so it stays distinct. A cup of raw long-grain rice gives about three cups cooked, which is right for this quantity.
- YieldNot stated in the original; the quantities suggest roughly four as a main course, six as a side.
A Creole gumbo in effect, and seemingly written for readers unfamiliar with the term: the book calls the sassafras powder filée only in an aside, as though the word needed introducing. Filé is generally traced to the Choctaw of the Gulf Coast, who dried and pounded young sassafras leaves; it passed into New Orleans cooking as a thickener used alongside, or instead of, okra. Here both appear at once, which is often said to run against Louisiana practice. Okra and tomatoes are both high-summer crops, which makes this a seasonal dish.