Soup/Stew/Chowder Ochra Soup

ochra soup

(from Godey's Ladies Magazine, edited by L.A. Godey, Sarah J. Hale, 1861)

Ingredients:

1 leg of veal​

4 dozen okra​

6 tomatoes​

6 small onions​

1 green pepper​

thyme and parsley​

salt​

red pepper​

optionally: a piece of salt pork, previously boiled​

Instructions:

Boil a leg of veal with about four dozen ochras, an hour; then add six tomatoes, six small onions, one green pepper, a bunch of thyme and parsley, and let it boil till dinner-time. Season it with salt and red pepper to your taste, and, if agreeable, add a piece of salt pork which has been previously boiled. The soup should boil seven or eight hours.​

Notes:

​

Salt pork, or "fatback" as it is sometimes called, was often used repeatedly to flavor soups or vegetable dishes. A piece that had already been used a time or two was considered preferable, as the excessive saltiness would have boiled out while considerable flavor remained. A strip or two of modern-day bacon would probably serve the same purpose.​

The "red pepper" is likely cayenne pepper.​

 

[CivilWarTalk]

okra or gumbo soup
(from The Housekeeper's Encyclopedia of Useful Information for the Housekeeper, by E. F. Haskell, 1861)

Ingredients:

1 chicken​

1 slice ham​

onions​

pepper​

salt​

sweet herbs​

very thin noodles​

1/2 cup chopped okra​

1 pint oysters​

Instructions:

Boil a chicken and a slice of ham in sufficient water to make a tureen of soup. When the fowl is thoroughly done, take it with the ham from the broth. Flavor the soup with onions, pepper, salt and sweet herbs; make a paste [dough] with eggs and flour, roll it as thin as wafers, dry a little, then roll it as tightly as possible, and slice in thin shreds; put in the soup a teacupful of this, a teacupful of chopped okra, and a pint of oysters.​

Notes: This is a rather odd version of gumbo, but Mrs. Haskell was from Philadelphia.

Evidently the boiled chicken and ham can be used for other purposes, as there is no mention of putting them back into the soup.

 

[Pollaco]

Which is the correct spelling, Ochra or Okra? Either way it's good stuff.

 

[donna]

Okra is the common term and spelling. In past been spelling of Ochra.