Chicken Gumbo
1 quart green okra 1 tablespoon chopped red pepper 1 bay leaf, sprig of thyme 4 tablespoons butter 1 cup rice cooked 1 clove garlic Cook salt pork in frying pan five minutes; add chicken, and sauté a golden brown. Remove chicken; add onion; garlic, okra cut in slices, and sauté one half hour. Add to chicken and cover with boiling water. Add red pepper, seasonings, and cook slowly until chicken is tender. Melt butter; add flour and cream; cook five minutes; add chicken mixture. Serve garnished with rice. 1/4 cup onion + cup butter 1 quart oysters 4 quarts water 1 chicken cut in pieces
The ingredient list here has been scrambled in setting — quantities appear out of order, and several items called for in the method (flour, cream, salt pork) never got a measurement. Read the method first and treat the list as a checklist rather than a formula.
- Missing quantitiesFlour and cream are used in the finishing roux-and-liaison but are given no amount; salt pork is not listed at all. For a soup built on four quarts of water, figure roughly 4 tablespoons flour to the 4 tablespoons butter, a cup of cream, and 2 to 3 ounces of salt pork.
- The oystersA quart of oysters is listed and then never mentioned again. Oysters are usually added at the very end, off the heat or at a bare simmer, and are done in two to three minutes once the edges curl. Anything longer turns them rubbery.
- Okra is the thickenerThis is an okra gumbo, not a filé one — the half hour of sautéing the sliced okra with onion and garlic is what cooks off the mucilage and builds body. Do not shorten it, and use a wide pan so moisture escapes rather than steaming the okra.
- A quart of okraMeasured whole pods, that is roughly a pound. Small young pods slice cleanly; large ones are woody and should be avoided.
- The chickenA stewing fowl of this period was older and tougher than anything sold today. A 4 to 5 lb chicken cut in pieces will be tender in about an hour of slow simmering; the recipe itself sets no time, only 'cook slowly until chicken is tender.'
- Four quarts of waterThe list calls for four quarts, though the method only says to cover with boiling water; the full amount makes a large, thin pot of soup. Use less water if you want a gumbo with more presence, and salt at the end, after the pork has given up what it will.
- Chopped red pepperA tablespoon suggests fresh sweet red pepper rather than cayenne. Lowney's was a Boston company and the heat level is mild by Gulf standards; add cayenne separately if you want it.
- ServingThe rice is cooked apart and spooned into the bowl, with the gumbo ladled over — the standard practice, and it keeps the grains from breaking down in the pot.
Gumbo appears in northern cookbooks like this one as a Louisiana import, and versions in New England collections of the period tend to be tamer than their Gulf Coast models — butter and cream stand in for a dark roux. The name is generally traced to a West African word for okra, and okra is what does the work here: the pods thicken the broth as they break down, which is why the recipe calls for the long preliminary sauté. Filé, the ground sassafras alternative, does not appear. Lowney's book was published by a chocolate company to promote its products, and its non-chocolate chapters lean on the general American repertoire of the day.