CHICKEN GUMBO (1872)
Mrs. Hill's Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book (1872)
Annabella P. Hill
GUMBO
Fry a young chicken; after it gets cold, take out the bones. In another vessel fry one pint of young, tender, cut up ochra and two onions. Put all in a well-cleaned soup-kettle; an iron stew-pan lined with tin or porcelain is best. Add one quart of water; stew gently until done; and season with pepper and salt.
Another way of preparing Gumbo, is: Cut up a fowl as if to fry; break the bones; lay it in a pot with a little lard or fresh butter. Brown it a little. When browned, pour a gallon of water on it; add a slice of lean bacon, one onion cut in slices, a pint of tomatoes skinned, two pints of young pods of ochra cut up, and a few sprigs of parsley. Cover closely, removing the cover to skim off all impurities that may rise to the top. Set the soup-kettle where the water will simmer gently at least four hours. Half an hour before the soup is put in the tureen, add a thickening, by mixing a heaping tablespoonful of sassafras leaves, dried and pounded fine, with a little soup. Stir this well into the soup. Serve with a separate dish of rice.
Gather the leaf-buds of the sassafras early in the spring; dry, pound, sift, and bottle them. Miss Leslie recommends stirring the soup with a sassafras stick, when the powdered leaves cannot be procured. The sassafras taste is very disagreable to some persons, therefore should be omitted when this is the case.
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