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Gumbo with Sorrel
Cut into small dice-pieces one onion, one green pepper, two leeks, one ounce raw, lean ham and two ounces of raw, lean veal; place these articles in a saucepan with one tablespoon butter and gently brown for ten minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile. Moisten with five pints water or white broth, add one pound beef or veal, clean bones and boil for fifteen minutes. Add two tablespoons raw rice and slowly boil for twenty minutes more. Trim twelve good-sized fresh okras, wash them well, then cut in quarter-inch-thick pieces and add to soup, adding also two peeled, fresh red tomatoes cut into eight pieces each. Boil for five minutes. Trim off the stalks and thoroughly wash fifteen leaves of very fresh sorrel, finely slice them in julienne strips and add to the soup. Season with one and a half teaspoons salt, lightly mix and slowly boil for twenty minutes more, remove the bones, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A soup-style gumbo built on a quick meat broth rather than a roux, thickened by okra and rice instead of filé. The whole character of the dish rests on the sorrel, which goes in near the end and should not be cooked to death.
- Sorrel firstFifteen leaves of sorrel is roughly a large handful, depending on leaf size. It collapses within a minute or two into an olive-khaki puree and turns sharply lemony; the final twenty-minute simmer specified here will flatten that brightness, so consider adding half the sorrel at the end of cooking off the heat if you want the acidity to register.
- QuantitiesFive pints is 10 cups, which needs a pot of at least 5 quarts. The recipe gives no yield; on these quantities it should serve roughly six to eight as a first course, four as a meal.
- Reactive pansSorrel is high in oxalic acid and will pick up a metallic taste from bare cast iron, aluminium or unlined copper. Use stainless or enamelled ware. Ordinary culinary amounts of sorrel are harmless, but the leaves are not a salad green to eat by the bowlful.
- Okra and the slime questionTwelve okra pods cut into quarter-inch rounds release mucilage as they cook, and that is doing the thickening work here. If it goes further than you like, the tomatoes and sorrel acid help; do not rinse the cut okra, which only makes it worse.
- RiceTwo tablespoons of raw long-grain rice cooked for the better part of forty-five minutes will break down almost entirely, which is intended. It is a thickener, not a garnish.
- The bonesA pound of clean beef or veal bones goes in early but is only removed at the end, so it simmers about an hour in all; even so it contributes little. If you want body, use a good stock in place of the water, or roast and simmer the bones separately in advance.
- Ham and veal"Raw lean ham" in a book of this date most likely means uncooked cured ham — prosciutto crudo or a piece of country ham rather than deli slices. Diced pancetta is a fair substitute. The two ounces of veal can be shoulder; pork shoulder works if veal is hard to find.
- SeasoningA teaspoon and a half of salt in 10 cups of liquid is light by modern taste, especially with unsalted broth. Season again at the end, and a good grind of black pepper or a pinch of cayenne is in keeping with the style.
Filippini's International Cook Book collects dishes from across the range a professional hotel kitchen was expected to cover, and this one sits at the point where Creole gumbo meets the sorrel soups of northern Europe. Gumbo takes its name, generally traced to a West African word for okra, from the pod that thickens it; Louisiana cooks used either okra or dried sassafras leaf (fil hat the the two were the two were combined.