by Anna Reeser
Ever since I was old enough to want unconventional things to say, I’ve been claiming okra as my favorite vegetable. I have also been citing my octopus bite as my most interesting scar story since the day it happened when I was ten. (Ask me about that sometime). Just like the octopus bite, which always brings in a string of questions, people are usually curious about what okra is and why I would prefer it to obvious green edibles like green beans and zucchini and asparagus.
Essentially okra looks like a little pointed seed pod with a cap. It has a peach-like fur on the outside and nutty seeds and an odd slime on the inside. The plant originates in Africa, and comes from the mallow family along with species like cotton and cocoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra). Okra appea
rs in Southern cuisine and Indian dishes, neither of which are part of my heritage. Yet, okra has always been a comfort food for me.
My dad has prepared stir-fried okra on occasion since I can remember. Often the bizarre pods came straight from our backyard garden. The flavor of cooked okra is difficult to describe. It is the taste of nuts and cast iron and green. And, oddly enough, the taste of home. I asked my dad (Dave Reeser, who designed and started this website) how he was introduced to okra. He told me, “I always loved Gumbo and wanted to make some but had a difficult time finding okra in the supermarkets. So we planted some one summer. It grew fast in the San Fernando Valley and soon there were many pods, but some had already become tough. The Gumbos were okay, but it was hot and we didn’t want soup that often. So, we looked for other recipes. About that time we got Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian cookbook with the okra on the cover and tried some of the dishes. The mushy ones didn’t appeal at the time but the sliced and fried hot one did. So, I perfected my version:
Ingredients:
1 huge pile of sliced fresh tender okra
4 or 5 diced up small Japanese Peppers (they are hot and similar to a Serrano)
a bunch of sliced scallions
some cut up Pole beans (green beans) about 1/4 the amount of the Okra
Method:
Fry the okra first for a while in the hot oil till almost brown add the other ingredients and brown, then add black pepper and salt.”
To fill in the story, my parents moved from LA to Ojai just before I was born, and were able to grow more okra in the warm climate there. My dad must have altered his original okra recipe over the years, making it milder to appeal to us children. One of my favorite recent okra stir-fries involved sweet red bell peppers and mustard seeds. When I moved to Berkeley, I was comforted to see okra in the daily spread of weird vegetables at the Berkeley Bowl market. I began making okra, urging my skeptical housemates to try the little cross sections of seed pod crisped in olive oil. Here is a recipe for the simple okra stir-fry I made this week. Now I’m excited to try my dad’s recipe with hot peppers and green beans.
Ingredients:
1 lb sliced fresh tender okra
1 red bell pepper
1/4 sliced sweet onion
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
a few sliced small carrots
salt & black pepper
hot pepper flakes
olive oil
Method:
Heat oil in a cast-iron pan until mustard seeds sizzle when dropped in. Add okra and onions. Cook until okra slime begins to cook off, then add peppers and carrot slices. Fry until well browned. then add black pepper, hot pepper flakes and salt.
Yield: depends on how much okra you can eat in one sitting. In my case, quite a bit.