Okra
Boil young okra till tender, in salt and water. Drain, add half a teacup of cream, and a heaping tablespoonful butter. Let it boil up, turn it out in a dish, sprinkle salt and pepper over it and serve hot.
A plain buttered okra with barely four lines of instruction, which means the cook is expected to supply the judgment. Almost everything depends on how long the pods sit in the water.
- Timing is the hingeYoung whole pods are tender in roughly 5 to 8 minutes in salted boiling water; sliced pods in about half that. Cooked much longer, the pods collapse and release more of the mucilage okra is unfairly blamed for.
- Keep the pods wholeThe recipe says only "young okra" and never mentions slicing, so whole pods are the natural reading. Trim only the stem cap without cutting into the pod, so the interior stays sealed and the texture stays firm.
- "Half a teacup of cream"Nineteenth-century teacups varied, but are commonly reckoned at around 5 to 6 fluid ounces, which would make this roughly 1/3 cup. Use heavy or whipping cream; a thin modern carton cream will not thicken in the brief boil-up.
- Heaping tablespoonful butterCall it a generous 1 1/2 tablespoons. With the cream it makes a light coating sauce rather than a bath.
- Drain thoroughlyAny boiling water clinging to the pods will thin the cream and dull the flavor. Give them a full minute in the colander, shaking once or twice, before they go back in the pan.
- "Let it boil up"One brief return to the boil, thirty seconds or so, is all that is wanted. A longer reduction will overcook the okra you just carefully cooked correctly.
- Choosing podsLook for pods under about 3 inches; larger ones turn woody and fibrous no matter how they are cooked. If the tip does not snap cleanly when bent, the pod is too old.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of okra. As a rough guide, about a pound with these amounts of cream and butter will serve four as a side dish.
Okra came to the American South with the transatlantic slave trade from West Africa, and its name comes from that region — okra is generally traced to Igbo okwuru, while the alternate Southern term gumbo is usually linked to Bantu words such as Kikongo ki-ngombo. The plant's botanical origin is disputed, with West Africa, Ethiopia and South Asia all proposed. By the time Housekeeping in Old Virginia appeared in 1879, okra was thoroughly domesticated in Virginia kitchens, and it turns up in that book here in the plainest treatment of all. The cream-and-butter finish is often said to be the nineteenth-century Virginia way with a boiled green vegetable, and its use here suggests okra being handled as an ordinary garden vegetable rather than a regional curiosity.