Tag: okra

Why Isn’t Okra a Star?

Why isn’t okra a star ingredient? I mean, it’s even shaped like a star. What gives?

This summer, I planted okra in my garden. It’s still going strong. The plants haven’t required much other than an occasional watering to become taller than I and they are prolific producers. One acre yields 4 to 6 tons.

In spite of that, I rarely see okra at the farmers market and it’s not often available at the supermarket. This left me curious what drives the minimal availability and whether accessibility limits its inclusion in recipes. I started clicking around.

Okra is grown commercially for both the fresh and frozen food markets. Some varieties have round pods. Those preferred for the fresh market have star-shaped pods. That’s what I grow.

Since pods for the fresh market require harvesting with a knife, picking can be time-consuming. And the window for perfect-sized pods is narrow. No need to click around to discover that. I’ve learned the lesson in person many times over. Picking a single acre of okra takes between 10 and 20 man-hours.

Machine harvesting has been attempted with varying degrees of success. Given its labor-intensive nature, okra may never be available on the scale of potatoes, corn, or spinach.

But does that mean okra shouldn’t star in more dishes than gumbo, succotash, okra & tomatoes, and fried or pickled okra? Many of you may be imagining its slimy texture and thinking, nah, that’s plenty of dishes– maybe more than enough.

It’s true okra can be slimy. Pairing it with citrus or adding vinegar will reduce this. You can also cook at high heat to minimize sliminess. For example: sautéing, grill charring, or breading and frying result in delicious flavor and texture sans slime.

I sometimes slice a few pods and throw them in with fresh green beans I’m sautéing. The other day, I added some sautéed slices to pasta. It took the dish from a solid, everyday flavor into the slightly exotic category.

I love using large pods, lemon juice, lemongrass, chicken stock, water, and seasoning to create a broth for cooking fish and rice. It creates a pleasing base that can be taken to another level with the addition of saffron or topped with fresh pico de gallo for an extra pop of flavor.

Okra will grow in zones 2 – 11 but it’s traditionally considered a southern food. That association may contribute to it being a role player rather than a star ingredient.

And while many people may hear the word slime and assume they won’t like it, anyone who has had fried okra done right will fight you for it at the store. It was always the star of my grandmother’s summer table.

Tomorrow, it will be the star of mine. I have some sliced and breaded and waiting in the refrigerator. Once I pull out a cast iron skillet and heat some oil, I’ll be minutes away from a mix of soft and crunchy texture that tastes like nothing else!

I even have vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden to go with. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Lessons from the Garden

Make Lemon Gumbo

When life gives you okra, make lemon gumbo. Life didn’t give me lemons last week, but it gave me some HUGE okra pods. A mere two days away from the garden and tiny pods grew so big my grandmother would have disinherited me for not picking them sooner.

The pods weren’t really hard or dry, but they were large and slightly tougher than anything I would want to fry. After the planting, weeding, and watering, I don’t like to throw away anything I’ve grown unless I must. I decided to use the pods in a stew.

Actually, I decided to use the pods in a stew made from ingredients I had on hand. That turned out to be a lemon, some boneless/skinless chicken breasts, chicken stock, brown rice, and seasonings.

While gumbo may technically be a stew thickened with okra, no one I know would call a dish gumbo unless it began with a roux. This did not. Maybe I should call it Coulda-Been-Gumbo.

Anyway, I began with a 32 oz box of ImagineR Organic Free Range Chicken Broth and 2 quarts of water. Into that, I squeezed one fresh lemon.

I removed the ends of each okra pod and sliced them about 1/8” thick. I added the slices to the stock along with one shishito pepper with the non-stem end removed. Then I chopped a small carrot and threw it in. While this mixture was heating, I sprinkled salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper over the mixture.  

I wanted to add a little more flavor to the broth, so I dug around in the spice cabinet opening jars and smelling spices. I like to do this while standing close enough to the boiling pot that I can smell the spice jar and the broth in the same breath. Then I pick the best combination of aromas.

This time, I chose a blend from Penzeys Spices called Ruth Ann’s Muskego Ave Seasoning. The aroma reminds me a little of the chicken bullion cubes my mother used. It’s a blend of salt, black pepper, garlic, lemon peel, and onion. I sprinkled in about a half teaspoon.

Unlike when I test recipes, when I cook like this I rarely measure. That means I can’t tell you precisely how much I added. I can tell you it smelled right after I stirred everything together.

By now, the mixture was boiling. I reduced the heat and allowed it to simmer for 30 minutes. Then I removed the pepper.

Turning the heat back up, I added a cup of parboiled brown rice and 4 thin sliced chicken breasts. I sprinkled the chicken breasts and rice with salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I put on a lid, reduced the heat to medium low, and set a timer for 25 minutes.

Once the timer alerted me, I turned off the heat and allowed the gumbo to sit for about 5 minutes before I spooned some into a bowl. After a little cooling, I was ready to sample.

The flavors were scrumptious and the texture was pleasing. The lemon juice prevented the okra from making the broth slimy. The extra cooking time caused the slices to break apart into tender pieces of green pod and loose seeds. The chicken was moist and tender.

I was pleased enough that I want to try this again. Perhaps next time, I’ll use tilapia instead of chicken. And maybe I’ll add some lemongrass for added citrus zing.

I’m pretty sure the opportunity will present itself soon. Okra grows FAST!

Choose Easy-to-Adapt Recipes

Is the Secret Always to KISS?

Whether it’s clean eating, a plant-based diet, or a healthy lifestyle, is the secret always to KISS? A lot of us want to live as healthily as possible. There’s plenty of information out there to help us. A search for clean eating lends 507,000,000 results, plant-based diet 231,000,000 results, and healthy lifestyle 748,000,000 results. If you have time, you can read more than a billion articles. If not, it seems that they all boil down to one idea that could be expressed as KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)!
simple
Looking back at the food I ate as a child, I had a cleaner diet than many people who deliberately attempt one today. We ate at home. Our beef came from our field. Our pork came from the pigs that almost killed me when I tried to play with their babies. My plate was always full of vegetables fresh from the garden – lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, cabbage, squash, carrots, peas, okra, corn, and potatoes.

In the summer, there was watermelon. Honeybees lived behind our front porch. There was always a line of them flying across the driveway. Once a year, my dad hired a man to rob the hive. Each jar of rich, thick honey had a bit of honeycomb included.
There was no elaborate preparation in the kitchen. None was needed. Flavor burst from lightly sautéed squash or boiled corn on the cob. I ate tomatoes like apples. They were so sweet and juicy, I never added salt.

Our tomato juice was home canned. Pickles were home made. We rarely ate sandwiches or pasta and hardly ever at restaurants. A picnic at the river was left-over fried chicken, deviled eggs, potato salad, and bright green sweet pickles. All of them were made by my grandmother.

I remember this food as the tastiest I ever had. I rarely find produce in the grocery store to match. Even the farmers market often falls short. Maybe that’s why my children and grandchildren seem satisfied with food full of flavor enhancers or additives.

Maybe it’s why many people are satisfied with mediocre restaurant or packaged convenience foods. And maybe some of these people think that great food requires lots of equipment and lengthy preparation.

Perhaps that’s why they sometimes miss the fact that clean eating, a plant-based diet, and a healthy lifestyle all begin with keeping things simple. Start with fresh. Process as little as possible. Let the flavors of the ingredients shine through – keep it simple stupid.

http://www.cooking2thrive.com/blog/?s=the+hive