[Sca-cooks] Okra - Seasonal Foods

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> I do not like it, Sam I Am, I do not like it fried in a pan, or greased
like
> a ham (ok, I ran out of rhyme)
> And, frying foods with breading is something I'm trying to get away from
all
> together.  I have had it that way, and it was tolerable, which is not
enough
> to make me a fan.  (found my rhyme again :)
> I'll give it a shot when it comes around, it being really fresh and all.
> Since its from Africa, are there any medieval-oid recipes that call for
> Okra?  I can't recall seeing any, but I could be supressing them...
> Christianna

Christianna, okra is one of those things that needs to be cooked two ways-
either very briefly, so it's tender but not slimy, or over a long time until
it dissolves.

The first way is what you're doing when you bread it with cornmeal (I use
masa harina, and spice it with a bit of _good_curry powder). It's absolutely
at its best when you fry it this way, with sliced and similarly breaded and
fried green tomatoes.

The second way, which might be more to your taste, is to slow cook it, using
it as a thickener for a soup or stew- it's one of your basic ingredients in
a gumbo, for that reason. When you slow cook it, until it dissolves, it
really does add nice body and flavor to a soupy sort of thing.

The reason many people don't like it is because they manage to cook it just
to the slimy stage- I don't like it that way ;-)

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....