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Boiled Okra
Put the young and tender pods of long, white okra in salted boik ing water in a porcelain or tin-lined sauce-pan (as iron discolors it), water in a porcelain or tin-lined sauce-pan (as iron discolors it), boil fifteen minutes, take off stems, and serve with butter, pepper, salt, and vinegar if preferred; or, after boiling, slice in rings, season with butter, dip in batter and fry; season and serve, or stew an equal quantity of tomatoes, and tender sliced okra, and one or two sliced green peppers; stew in porcelain kettle fifteen or twenty minutes, season with butter, pepper and salt, and serve. - Miss M.
E. W., Selma, Ala.
Three preparations in one entry: plain boiled okra, boiled-then-battered-and-fried rings, and okra stewed with tomatoes and green pepper. The instructions are terse but sound, with one caveat about timing.
- The pan matters, and the reason is realThe pan matters, and the reason is sound -- okra contains phenolic compounds that react with iron, darkening the pods. Porcelain-lined and tin-lined pans were the period answer; stainless steel, enamelled cast iron or a nonstick pan does the same job. A bare cast-iron pan may still darken it.
- Fifteen minutes is longFifteen minutes is long by modern taste -- young pods are tender in about 5 to 8 minutes of boiling. The full fifteen gives soft, very mucilaginous okra. Test with a knife tip at five minutes.
- Stems on, then offCooking the pods whole with the cap intact is widely said to limit the mucilage released into the water; trimming the cap before cooking is one common cause of a ropy pot.
- "Long, white okra"A pale-green heirloom type sold under names like White Velvet, still available from seed but rarely in shops. Any tender green pod works; choose ones no longer than about 3 to 4 inches, which snap rather than bend.
- The fried versionBoiling first, then slicing, buttering, battering and frying is unusual today; modern cornmeal-dredged okra goes into the fat raw. If you follow the original, drain and dry the rings thoroughly or the batter will slide off.
- The stewed versionEqual parts tomato and okra with a green pepper or two is a long-standing Southern dish. Fifteen to twenty minutes suits it, and the acid in the tomatoes is generally credited with cutting the mucilage.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; about a pound of pods would serve four as a side, with an equal weight of tomatoes in the stew.
Okra came to the American South from West Africa in the era of the transatlantic slave trade, and several of its names came with it: "okra" is generally traced to Igbo okuru, and "gumbo" to a west-central Bantu word for the pod. By the time The Dixie Cook Book was compiled in the 1880s okra was an ordinary market vegetable across the lower South, and the three treatments given here, plain boiled, battered and fried, and stewed with tomatoes and peppers, remain among the commonest Southern uses for it. The contributor's note about iron discolouring the pods is the kind of practical detail these community collections preserve.