Okra Soup

Ingredients

• half a dozen pods of tender okra
• six or eight moderate-sized tomatoes
• Red pepper should always be put in, to suit the taste of your family
• corn
• Irish potatoes
• Lima beans
• the meat also may be varied

Method

1. 1

   Combine okra and tomatoes in a pot without frying the meat.

2. 2

   Add water and seasonings, simmering until flavors meld.

3. 3

   Adjust ingredients based on availability.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 6 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 40. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Corn Soup. Cut the com from the cob, and boil the cobs in water for at least an hour, then add the grains, and boil until they are thoroughly done ; put one dozen ears of corn to a gallon of water, which will be reduced to three quarts by the time the soup is done \ then pour on a pint of new milk, two well-beaten eggs, salt and pepper to your taste; continue the boiling a while longer, and stir in, to season and thicken it a little, a table -spoonful of good butter rubbed up with two table-spoonfuls of flour. Com soup may also be made nicely with water in which a pair of grown fowls have been boiled or parboiled, in- stead of having plain water for the foundation. Calf's-head Soup. The calf's head is cleaned thus : wash it well, and sprinkle some pounded rosin all over the hairs, then dip them in boiling water and take them instantly out. The rosin will dry inmiediately, and the skin may be scraped clean with ease. Having so done, put the head in a pot with about two gallons of water, and boil it until tender. Take it out and cut the meat into small pieces. Return half of it to the soup, after straining the liquor, and let all boil to- gether for several hours. Flavor with a table-spoonful of allspice, a teaspoonful of black pepper, and just before dishing up a teacupful of Madeira or sherry wine. Slice also four hard-boiled eggs into rings and put them into the tureen. Add salt also, but sparingly, to taste. Half of the meat is enough for one tureen of soup, so VIBOINIA COOKERY-BOOK. 77 that the rest may be put away in a cool place, to be used next day. If you prefer to do so, make the meat up into force- meat balls, as they are considered rather elegant. The harslet should be boiled with the head and strained out, if you do not choose to have meat in the tureen, although to most palates the finely chopped harslet and other meat, if not in too great excess, is an acceptable addition to the dish. It is a rather troublesome soup in the prepara- tion, but is one of the best made, and not inaptly has it been called " mock-turtle soup." Gumbo. Fry a chicken with two or three slices of middling (which must by no means be rusty) or a table-spoonful of lard, not donCj but only a little brown. In the same gravy fry two quarts of sliced okra until it is of a dark green color ; also fry an onion with the okra ; put gravy and all in as early after breakfast as you can, and add one gallon of boiling water; then set it in a place on the fire where it will cook slowly without boiling. As soon as you can get them ready add on« quart of tomatoes, after the juice is strained off, a good deal of corn cut off the cob, a pod of red pepper, and salt to your taste. It must be simmered until you cannot distinguish the vege- tables ; then pick out the bones, and serve in a tureen, like soup. The corn should be cut the length of the ear and scraped off. Mock-turtle Soup. Have a large calf's head cleaned, without taking off the skin; divide the lower half from the front of the head; put the head on to boil in a gallon of water, the hock of a ham or a small piece of pork, four or five onions, a bunch TO VIROmU COOKERY-BOOK. of parsley, a teaspoonful of cloves, half a nutmeg, a tea- spoonful of pepper, a table-spoonful of salt. Boil all to- gether until the flesh on the head is quite tender, so that the bones can be easily removed ; put it on a board and chop up into small pieces ; take the eyes out carefully and lay them aside ; strain the water in which the head was boiled, and just before dishing up add one glass of wine and one gill of mushroom or walnut catsup. Let the soup boil till reduced to two quarts ; thicken with two spoonfuls of browned flour, stirred into two ounces or a large table-spoonful of butter ; put half the meat in just so after being chopped, or make it into force-meat balls, with bread-crumbs and yolk of egg, if you prefer it that way; let the soup boil a short while longer after the meat is added, and serve up hot. The eyes are es- teemed a great delicacy by epicures. Add a sliced lemon when ready for table. LiTTLB Eggs foe Turtle ob Mock-turtle Soup. Mash up the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and make them into a paste with a raw one ; roll bits of it up into the shape of little balls, and throw them into boiling water to harden, which will be in about two minutes ; drop into the tureen of soup just before it is sent to table, and dainty morsels they furnish. Oyster Soup, No. 1. Wash two quarts of oysters from their own liquor, and put them on the fire in a kettle with about three quarts of water ; boil till they are done, which may be told by the shrinking of the outer gills ; then take them off the fire, and put into them the yolks of six beaten eggs, and from a half to a whole pint of new milk or sweet cream, with a quarter of a pound of butter, and salt and pepper VmOINlA COOKERY-BOOK, TO to suit the taste. Better put very little salt. Return the kettle to the fire, and let the soup remain there only just long enough to thicken; add a table-spoonful of flour for thickening, as in other soups. Otstbb Soup, No. 2. Strain three quarts of oysters from their liquor, and put the liquor on the fire to boil, with half a pint of cel- ery cut into small dice, two or* three blades of mace, a little pepper and salt, with a suspicion of made mustard. If there should not be liquor enough to make two quarts, fill up that amount with pure water. After the liquor has boiled for about five minutes add the oysters. Just be- fore taking it ofE add a large table-spoonful of butter rul)bed up with flour and a quart of rich milk, or cream and milk mixed. Instead of flour, one may use for thick- ening the beaten yolks of four eggs, which makes the soup very rich and nice; but if eggs are scarce and high, they are not regarded as indispensable. In the same way all seasoning but that of a little pepper and salt may be omitted, and the plain oysters found good enough. Okba Soup Differs from gumbo only in not having the meat fried which is put into it, and in the vegetables not being strained out. Okra and tomatoes may be put in plenti- fully, or in lesser quantity, according to circumstances. Half a dozen pods of tender okra and six or eight mod- erate-sized tomatoes will flavor beef soup nicely, if you are dependent upon a city market ; but if you can draw upon a large country garden for supplies, a quart of each will be none too many. Red pepper should always be put in, to suit the taste of your family; com, Irish potatoes, and Lima beans are also acceptable additions to this soup,' 80 VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. and even rice comes not amiss. The meat also may be varied

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.