Cut the okra in thin slices, and pare and slice the tomatoes. Have one pint of tomatoes to two of okra. Put the vegetables in a stew-pan with one teaspoonful of salt and a little pepper. Simmer half an hour. Add one table-spoonful of butter, and more salt, if needed.
Scalloped Okra and Tomatoes.
Prepare the same as stewed okra and tomatoes. When they have been stewing fifteen minutes add the butter and pepper, and turn into a deep dish. Cover with bread or cracker crumbs, dot with butter, and bake half an hour.
Fried Egg Plant.
Cut the plant in slices about one-third of an inch thick. Pare these, and lay in a flat dish. Cover with boiling water, to which has been added one table-spoonful of salt for every quart of water. Let this stand one hour. Drain, and pepper the slices slightly, and dip in beaten egg and bread crumbs (two eggs and a pint of crumbs for a good-sized plant). Fry in boiling fat for eight or ten minutes. The slices will be soft and moist when done. Or, the slices can be seasoned with pepper, and fried in just enough pork fat to brown them. The egg plant is sometimes stewed, and sometimes baked, but there is no other mode so good as frying.
Boiled Rice.
One cupful of rice, one quart of boiling water, one scant table-spoonful of salt. Wash the rice in three waters, and put in the double kettle with the salt and boiling water. Boil rapidly fifteen minutes; then pour off all the water. Cover tightly, return to the fire, and cook twenty minutes longer. The water in the under boiler must boil rapidly all the time. Rice cooked in this manner will have every grain separate.
Corn Oysters.
One cupful of flour, half a cupful of melted butter, three table-spoonfuls of milk, two teaspoonfuls of salt, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of pepper, one pint of grated corn. Pour the corn on the flour, and beat well; then add the other ingredients, and beat rapidly for three minutes. Have fat in the frying-pan to the depth of about two inches. When smoking hot, put in the batter by the spoonful. Hold the spoon close to the fat and the shape of the oyster will be good. Fry about five minutes.
New Bedford Corn Pudding.