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Okra Creole
2 tablespoons shortening 1 large minced onion 1 chopped clove garlic 1 shredded green pepper salt 3 large sliced tomatoes 1 qt. sliced okra 1 sprig parsley Cayenne and pepper Cook shortening, onion, garlic, green pepper and tomatoes together 5 minutes. Add okra, which has been washed and sliced, and the minced parsley. Cook in covered pan till okra and pepper are tender. Season cook another 10 minutes. Serves 8.
A plain stewed vegetable dish that depends entirely on how the okra is handled. Nothing here is difficult, but two details decide whether the result is silky or slimy.
- Slice the okra dry and lateWash the pods whole, dry them, then trim and slice just before they go into the pan. Cut okra left sitting in its own moisture is generally held to release more mucilage.
- Quantity of okraA quart of sliced okra is roughly 1 lb to 1 1/4 lb of whole pods, or about 20 to 24 medium ones. Choose pods under 4 inches; larger ones are woody at the ribs.
- ShorteningIn a book of this period 'shortening' usually means solid vegetable shortening, though lard would also have answered to the word. Bacon fat, lard or oil all work here.
- TomatoesThree large fresh tomatoes is about 1 1/2 lb, peeled or not as you like. Out of season, a 14 oz can of diced tomatoes with its juice is a better trade than pale winter fruit, since the acid is what tames the okra.
- Total cooking timeFive minutes for the sofrito, then covered cooking until the okra is tender, then ten minutes more after seasoning. Expect 30 to 40 minutes in all. The long finish is deliberate: it drives off the loose liquid and thickens the whole thing.
- The lidCook covered only until the okra gives up its raw crunch, then take the lid off for the final ten minutes. Trapped steam keeps the mixture watery and the texture ropy.
- Cayenne"Cayenne and pepper" means ground red pepper plus black pepper. Start with 1/8 teaspoon cayenne for eight servings and add more at the end; the heat blooms as the dish sits.
- ServingEight servings as a side dish, or four over rice as a main. It reheats well and is arguably better the next day.
Okra came to the American South with the transatlantic slave trade from West Africa, where the pods had long been used both as a vegetable and as a thickener; the word is generally traced to a West African source, probably the Igbo name for the plant. "Creole" in a mid-century American cookbook rarely signals anything as specific as New Orleans practice; by the mid-twentieth century it had become shorthand for the tomato-onion-green-pepper-garlic base seen here, the same combination that flavors shrimp creole. Books of this kind promised housewives a full rotation of dinners, and a cheap, filling, strongly seasoned vegetable dish that stretched to eight portions earned its place in the schedule.