Okra's on

Remember the old series of TV commercials for Oprah Winfrey, when she was the new thang? It was something that always ended with "Oprah's on." Well, this blog has nothing to do with celebrity except for mine, but it DOES have to do with food, and today I'm addressing one of the vegetables about which people have the strongest feelings: okra.

'TOO SLIMY' That was the response that I got from not one, not two, not three, but FOUR people when I told them, last year, that I was cooking with okra. And yes, it IS a slimy vegetable, no doubt about it. When you cut into an okra pod, you will almost always get a bit , or a lot, of a very thick, not so nice, slimy liquid (there ARE ways to reduce it, by the way, and I'll talk about them, but any techniqe that tells you it eliminates it, is lying). The only other vegetable I've encountered that does this is cactus paddles. I have found out that it's the same compound, chemically, and while there is usually some kind of botanical relationship between plants when they share this kind of property, I know of none between these two.

Now, in addition to the "too slimy" comment, I also got a handful of comments along the lines of "I LOVE OKRA. What are you making with it?" But again, this was always followed by "How do you get rid of the sliminess?" Yes, we all deal with it. If you like okra, you basically try to ignore it. If you don't like okra, you don't have to deal with it, since you don't eat it.

Well, here are some ways to lessen it. Okra only "bleeds" the sliminess, when it's cut. So if you do something like dip the okra into eggs, and then a coating, and deep fry it, you don't get it very much. You eat the hot okra so fast, that you almost don't know it's there. And deep fried okra, especially coated in corn meal, is GOOD. But as one person once said on TV "you could deep fry your big toe and it would taste good."

Clearly she had never seen MY big toes, but let's move on, shall we? Indeed, it is true that deep frying sort of makes everything taste better, but it's not a true test of the vegetable.

The bigger and older the okra get, the slimier they are (there's probably a parallel to be drawn here, but I'm not going to draw it). So, if you want to try okra, buy smaller ones. An inch at most. If you do this, it will take you time to get a good amount in your bag, but that's the trade off.

Also, if you're going to try cooking okra, cut it as close to when you're going to put it in the pot or pan as possible. The shorter okra sits, cut, the less sliminess. In the recipe I'm giving you below, you do it at the very last minute. It's a good recipe, either with or without the optional cream.

The recipe came out of a fascination with succotash, and a disgust about lima beans. I love okra, I hate lima beans. Well, succotash is essentially corn and lima beans. So, how could I replace the lima beans? For reasons that remain embedded in fog somewhere, I decided on okra. And when I thought about the sliminess issue, I thought of an Indian recipe for okra (bhindi), that my sister in law had given me. And I wound up combining the two of them, and adding an Italian twist, via olive oil. Here it is.

You will need a half cup, each of diced onion, diced red pepper, and cut up green beans. You will also need the kernels of 4-6 ears of corn, and you will also need a cup of okra. Wait on this one, but prepare the other vegetables ahead of time. Then, put about a tablespoon of olive oil into a pan, and keep that olive oil nearby. Get your pan hot, and add the onions. Sautee them until they begin to get t ranslucent, adding about a half teaspoon of salt. Now, take them out, and do the same thing with the peppers (you're doing this separately so as not to murk the flavors, especially since you may be adding cream). Follow with the green beans. Finally, when you're set to add the corn, switch to a tablespoon of butter. And sautee the corn just until it begins to get tender. You now have all these vegetables cooked and ready. NOW you slide up your okra, and get it into a hot pan, with enough oil added to bring the quantity back up to about a healthy tablespoon. When it begins to brown, add the corn, and all the other vegetables and stir them together. Correct the seasonings, by adding salt and pepper.

You can stop the recipe now, and if you're going to serve this next to a rich dish, that's the thing to do. But if you're only grilling fish, or meat, or something like that, pour a good measure of heavy cream - say a third of a cup or so - into the pan, and stir it all together until the cream thickens a bit.

And there you have it. Two choices, with a vegetable you haven't tried enough. Try it again. Betcha you'll like it.