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Gumbo of Frogs' Legs, Normandie
Finely slice one carrot, one onion, two branches celery and one leek, place them in a saucepan with branch parsley, three quarts water, sprig thyme, sprig marjoram, one bay leaf and one clove, adding one pound white, fresh fish bones or heads of same and gently boil for thirty-five minutes, strain the broth through cheesecloth into a vessel, cut in small square pieces a white onion, a green, seeded pepper and two leeks, place in saucepan with tablespoon melted butter and cook for ten minutes, occasionally stirring meanwhile, moisten with the fish broth, season with two teaspoons salt, let boil for fifteen minutes. Trim and cut in half-inch pieces twelve fresh okras and add them to the soup, with two ounces raw rice and two peeled, fresh tomatoes cut in small pieces, let boil for thirty-five minutes, plunge six ounces fresh frogs' legs in boiling water for three minutes, drain on a sieve, pick off the meat from the bones, and add the meat to the soup, with six oysters cut in quarters, six shrimps cut in small pieces and six finely sliced canned-mushrooms, and let boil for ten minutes, skim the fat from the surface, pour the soup into a soup tureen and serve.
A fish-stock gumbo built in three stages: broth, vegetable base, then the shellfish and frog meat. The stock is the whole foundation, and the last ten minutes of boiling are the part to reconsider.
- The hinge: don't boil the shellfishOysters and shrimp held at a boil for ten minutes turn rubbery and shed liquor into the pot. Add them off the heat or at a bare simmer in the last two to three minutes, once the rice and okra are already done.
- Fish bonesAsk a fishmonger for frames and heads from lean white fish — cod, haddock, snapper, sole. Avoid oily fish (salmon, mackerel) and remove gills, which turn the broth bitter. Thirty-five minutes is at the long end; much modern practice stops fish stock nearer 20-30 minutes.
- Frogs' legsSix ounces of legs yields perhaps two ounces of picked meat — a garnish, not a main element. Frozen legs, widely sold at Asian markets, work; thaw them before the three-minute blanch.
- "Green, seeded pepper"An ordinary green bell pepper, cored and seeded. In American cookbooks of this period a plain 'green pepper' generally meant a sweet pepper rather than a hot chile.
- OkraTwelve pods is roughly 4-6 oz. Cutting them into half-inch rounds and boiling for thirty-five minutes is deliberate here — that long cook is what thickens the soup. If you dislike the texture, sear the rounds dry in a hot pan first, though you will lose some body.
- RiceTwo ounces is about a third of a cup of raw long-grain rice. It swells considerably over thirty-five minutes and will keep thickening in the tureen; the soup is meant to be eaten straight away rather than held.
- Canned mushroomsA period convenience item with a soft, slightly metallic character. Sliced fresh button or cremini mushrooms, added with the shellfish, are a fair substitute; drain canned ones well if you use them.
- Seasoning and yieldSeasoning — Two teaspoons salt against three quarts of liquid is light — taste and correct once the broth has reduced. The recipe does not say how much of the strained broth to add, so judge the final volume by eye.
Alexander Filippini's The International Cook Book (1906) collected dishes from across the hotel-restaurant world of the period, and this one sits at the seam between two cuisines. The word gumbo is generally traced to a West African term for okra — ki ngombo in Kimbundu — and the dish's structure, okra-thickened soup with rice and shellfish, is Louisiana Creole. The label "Normandie," by contrast, is French kitchen shorthand: place-names used this way often indicated a garnish rather than a regional origin. Filippini also omits filé powder entirely and leans on okra for body. The result is characteristic of grand-hotel cooking around the turn of the century: a regional American soup given a French name, French technique, and a fish fumet as its base.