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Okra, Milanaise
Finely chop a good-sized white onion, the white part of three leeks, one sound green pepper and two ounces of raw, lean ham; place these in a large saucepan with a tablespoon butter, brown for fifteen minutes, frequently stirring meanwhile; moisten with one quart broth and one and a half quarts water. Season with a level tablespoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, add one pound of beef or veal bones, cover the pan and let boil for fifteen minutes; then add three tablespoons raw rice, two ounces spaghetti cut into small pieces, one ounce of cooked smoked beef tongue. Cut into small squares twelve trimmed, fresh okras into quarter-inch pieces and two peeled red tomatoes in eight pieces each; lightly mix, cover the pan and let boil for one hour. Remove the bones, pour the soup into a soup tureen, sprinkle a half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley over and serve.
This is a soup, not a side dish — a big pot of vegetable-and-rice broth in the Italian style with okra standing in for the usual greens. The instructions are sound, but two of the timings belong to an era when soup vegetables were expected to collapse.
- Yield and vesselOne quart broth plus a quart and a half of water gives roughly two and a half quarts before reduction, enough for about eight as a first course. Use a 6-quart pot or larger.
- Boil means simmerEvery "let boil" here should be a bare simmer. A rolling boil for an hour will emulsify the fat, cloud the broth and shred the spaghetti into paste.
- The hour is too longRice, cut spaghetti, okra and tomato all go in together and cook an hour. Modern practice: build the broth with the bones for 30-45 minutes, then add rice (15 minutes), okra and tomato (10 minutes), and the spaghetti in the last 8. Okra held at a boil for an hour turns to thread and releases all its mucilage into the broth.
- Raw lean hamThis means uncooked cured ham — prosciutto crudo, speck, or unsmoked pancetta. Two ounces is a flavor base, not a meat component; a supermarket boiled ham will not brown or contribute the same salt and fat.
- Smoked beef tongueOnce a delicatessen staple, now a special order. One ounce is a garnish for aroma; smoked beef brisket or a little bresaola is closer in character than anything else on a modern counter.
- SaltA level tablespoon goes in early, before the liquid reduces and before the tongue is added (the ham is already in the pot from the browning stage). Start with half and season at the end, since commercial broth is usually already salted.
- OkraTwelve trimmed pods cut in quarter-inch rounds is roughly 4 to 6 ounces. Choose small firm pods; larger ones tend to be tough. The recipe says to cut them into squares and then into quarter-inch pieces, which is simply loose phrasing for slicing them small.
- BonesA pound of beef or veal bones adds body to what would otherwise be a thin broth. Ask for marrow or knuckle bones; roasting them first is not in the original but deepens the color considerably.
"Milanaise" on a menu of this period is often taken to signal the Milanese habit of rice, tomato and a scrap of cured pork in the pot but not always.