Monday, November 13th, 2006...8:48 am
Okra without Sliminess
In response to a request from ThirdCat for okra without sliminess, Galaxy last month posted about okra without the mucilage, posting two yummy looking recipes that used sliced okra to minimise the slime. And ThirdCat was tickled!
Like Galaxy, I’m not anti-slime, but I knew there was another technique that could let you use whole okra without any unpleasantness. I had thought it was Claudia Roden’s (probably because she is about my favourite cooking writer evah), but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
This turned out to be because it was in fact a technique of Tess Mallos’, from her The Complete Middle East Cookbook:
Wash well, handling okra gently. Trim stem end without cutting pod. If desired trim around conical stem attached to pod, removing a thin layer. This is the correct way to prepare okra, but it is time consuming and only serves to remove the fine brown ring just above the pod and the outer layer of the stem. Middle Eastern cooks prefer to do this as the whole vegetable is then edible.
Fuzz can be removed if desired by rubbing pod gently with a fine nylon scourer. Do this under running water. If okra is young, there is no need to remove fuzz. Dry okra well in a cloth, or spread out and leave until dry. Place in a bowl and pour on 1/2 cup vinegar to each 500 g okra. Toss gently by hand so that vinegar coats okra. Leave for 30 minutes, drain and rinse well. Dry and use as directed in recipes. The vinegar treatment prevents okra from becoming slimy during cooking.
I think one of the real tricks to okra is the gentle handling – use the same light touch you would for asparagus. The other is to go for the little fellers, particularly early in Spring – because, as Galaxy put it so beautifully “you’re not trying to buy the results of the biggest vegetable competition“.
I sliced off the tops just above the little ring and put them in a bowl with a big glug of vinegar on top. I used cider vinegar because there was plenty of it. I also figured that the acid was the important part so using your top shelf fancy vinegar would be wasteful. It seemed to do the trick anyway.
One thing to be careful about in preparing middle eastern food is that elaborate preparation is a mark of great respect to your guests. If the people you are feeding are already impressed and you just want to enjoy a meal with them before 10 pm, you can generally omit a good two thirds of the preparation niceties. Of course, it helps to always do it the long complicated way once, so you can best pick which steps to leave out.
The same applies with the recipes. This one is from Claudia Roden’s superb Tamarind and Saffron, where she makes the point above about preparation and omits a lot of fancy schmancy stuff you don’t need to worry about when it’s Tuesday night after work and you’re hungry.
Okra in tomato sauce
Trim 500 g little okra and splash with some vinegar. Let it sit for a while as you faff about gathering the other things you’ll need.
Heat a big wide saute pan or a largish frypan – you want everything in more or less one layer. Fry a finely chopped onion in some light olive oil until golden. Add 2 cloves of chopped garlic and stir until the beautiful smell rises.
Rinse okra, dry gently in a tea towel and saute for 5 minutes, turning (still gently). Add 500 g peeled and chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper, the juice of a lemon and simmer for 15 or so minutes. The recipe calls for skinned tomatoes, but I don’t do that when I’m busy. It also has 1-2 teaspoons sugar which with sweet spring veg should be unnecessary. You can substitute dried limes or dried lime powder for the lemon, or if you love sour tastes you can use dried limes and the lemon. This is particularly nice if you’re going to eat the okra warm or cold. Dried limes (or loomi) can be a real bugger to find, but wowzer! they’re worth it. I get mine from a local posh cooking shop that stocks Herbie’s spices.
When the okra is soft and it smells delicious, stir through a small bunch of coriander (or parsley). It will obediently wait until the rest of dinner is ready – I like it best just a touch above room temperature. I didn’t do the lovely prep photos like Galaxy, but here’s the finished product:
Which tasted better than it looked. Could’ve wiped the bowl couldn’t I? We ate it with some fat little lamb cutlets, baked pumpkin, and wilted English spinach which had been turned quickly in a little warm garlicky olive oil.
21 Comments
November 13th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Yum! That looks good. You say this is in Tamarind & Saffron? How have I missed it? I think I’ve generally made a tinned tomato version from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian
I also like Claudia Roden. I have been liberated from salting eggplants thanks to her practical advice. I am particularly fond of the stories she tells in The New Book of Middle Eastern Food:
ps I took all the prep shots for another reader, whose son had given her a hard time when she photographed the ingredients of a meal before and after, asking her if there was no aspect of their lives that wasn’t up for blogging. Well of course not! I offered those photos as evidence that she had been relatively restrained by publishing only two photos.
November 13th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Gosh, ‘okra without sliminess’! I just don’t think I’ve reached this level of culinary ability yet.
November 13th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Easier than you think, elsewhere
And Galaxy, have you read Roden’s “Book of Jewish Food”. It is just Teh Best. Her raptures about a book called “Life is with People” about the pre WW2 shetls in Eastern Europe sent me off to find it*, and that turned out to also be one of Teh Best Books Evah. I love those little happy paths that a really good food writer can send you on. If I got to eat a meal with anyone I could choose, it would be her.
… and I was just jealous of your prep shots!
* found in the dying minutes of the Lifeline bookfair a few years ago, at the stage when you could stuff a whole bag of books full for $10, after months of fruitless searching online and being prepared to pay top dollar.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Oh, when you have this meal with Claudia, can I come too? I have only ever gazed longingly at the Book of Jewish Food.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
I first heard about okra from you blog people. You cook it so temptingly but at the same time you talk so much about the sliminess. I don’t know what to do.
November 13th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Oh, we only mention the slime because it bothers others. We can do slime or no slime, we’re very versatile.
And Galaxy, wouldn’t that dinner rock? Can we have Maggie Beer too?
… and the Book of Jewish Food I borrowed from the library and read like a novel. It was hard to give it back.
November 13th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Yes, we should invite Maggie too. This dinner party is getting better and better.
I will have to investigate the local library. That is if they let me back in. I seem to recall a rather untimely return of an Antonio Carluccio book on vegetables. I cooked out of that one the entire time I had it.
Laura, you have to find out if you’re for the slime or against it. Let us know!
November 14th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous but what about chokos? Other than as filler for the compost bin.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:58 am
I am not at home to Mr Choko, Bernice. I’ll happily eat them if someone serves them up, but I wouldn’t buy or grow them. Life is definitely long enough to stuff mushrooms, but far too short to pursue chokos.
November 14th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Life is definitely long enough to stuff mushrooms
Absolutely. All stuffing a mushroom entails is putting the stuffing on top of the mushroom. I’ve always thought that was a dumb phrase.
Shall investigate the availability of okra in local greengrocers asap. Already have the chickea flour…
November 14th, 2006 at 9:53 am
burqa begone!
November 14th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Well, next week, when things are a bit quieter and there is nothing to do but washing and cook, I will give okra another try. Or it might be the week after that. But before Christmas definitely.
Is the salting eggplant alternative just to do with cooking it in heaps of oil?
November 14th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Mostly. Claudia says that The Eggplants Of Today are so rarely bitter you needn’t bother, unless they are enormous. The only benefit is that they absorb less oil, but she recommends grilling. I recommend cooking eggplant slices on the barbie with no oil myself, as it works a treat and I figure you can have lots more if it’s not greasy. I have also found that eggplants that have a “bum” are more bitter than ones that have a round end.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I last used okra in a jambalaya I made about seven years ago during my dalliance with veganism, and I quite liked it, but for some reason I haven’t touched in since.
I am going to have to get some Claudia Roden books, obviously, though I am hoping to get Charmaine Solomon’s Encyclopedia of Asian Food for Christmas.
November 14th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
It is an excellent book, but it’s a reference book with recipes rather than a cookbook. Her “Complete Book of Asian Food” (in the same series as the Tess Mallos one mentioned in the post) is very, very good, and has more recipes and less food nerd detail. I, quite obviously, am the nerd who has both.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Hey, I love that ‘Tamarind and Saffron’ book – Galaxy had a copy that I lusted after for ages.
Now I have my own copy. I’ve made that okra in tomatoes dish from T&S and it’s great.
The slime isn’t such a big deal, Laura, unless you’re delicate. I quite like it. I especially like okra for the bobbles inside.
I’d really like that Jewish lahlah book by Roden.
I bought that big fat Silver Spoon cookbook of Italian recipes recently and have made … well, maybe 2 of the recipes. I just don’t have the time to pre-think dinner any more. I need Galaxy to go through it and find the good stuff for me.
I don’t salt my eggplant – I can’t be bothered. I slice it into fat matchsticks and fry it in a bit of oil (with water later to stop it sticking) and garlic, then add it to my pasta. It rocks.
…these days at our house we only eat filled pasta from the pasta man topped with fresh tomatoes, baby spinach, garlic (chopped) and salami – all heated through and tossed over the pasta. It’s great the first time, but when you eat it 3 or 4 times a week…
I long for the days when I had time to actually cook interesting food. And interesting food that isn’t something slow like bunny.
I’m also sad about our veggie patch – it’s so neglected. And some of the herbs died. We don’t even have our own spinach growing in there any more!
November 15th, 2006 at 10:45 am
dogpossum, all you need is 3 more quick pasta recipes and a crock pot. For pasta, I find it pretty hard to go past cauliflower/anchovies/ garlic/breadcrumbs, but sadly Owy doesn’t like it much. Also good is canned tuna, feta, olives and cherry tomatoes and rocket.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:23 am
I have issues with canned tuna. I try very hard to like it, but I just don’t.
I am making stuffed capsicum tonight in a vaguely middle-eastern fashion (from Cook’s Companion) and I shall give this okra business a go, I think.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
You know with all this talk about the slimy texture of okra I had forgotten about the other textures that it has. Dogpossum has reminded me with her talk of bobbles. I also really like the tooth feel of the outside of the okra, even when it’s cooked well.
Thumbs up on the two pasta dishes Zoe. For variation it’s good to substitute the cauliflower for broccoli. One of my favourite pasta dishes involves canned tuna marinated in basil, lemon juice, rind and olive oil. There’re fresh tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, olives, capers and chilli in there too. I can never stop eating it.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
mmh I’ll be trying that – R-okra
November 17th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
oooh! so much yumminess in one post!
I really quite like okra, but I did have a ick experience with the slime once. it was in Morocco, where, in general, we had Teh Yummiest food ever. dear god, it was soooo good. okay, Spain was really fab too, oh and Italy probably next, but I digress… the point is –
cold okra salad is really frigging slimy.
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