Looking for okra recipes

[Nancy]

Joe and I love okra, but my cookbooks have limited recipes. Anyone have some really good recipes?

 

[Barry]

I like fried Okra: Slice it, dust it with cornmeal, and fry it. Best fried in bacon grease if you're into having a short happy life.

It's also good in soups, sort of a mucilagenous thickening agent.

Because it's mucilagenous, I find it pretty disgusting on its own prepared any way other than fried.

Okra is a traditional ingredient for gumbo. You may want to try an Internet search for that term.

 

[terryj]

You can also coat it with cornmeal and bake it on a baking sheet sprayed with PAM olive oil spray. Of course its better fried the old fashioned way but its healthier baked.

 

[PJmomrunner]

Well, Nancy, I've never prepared this, but it looks good...

Well, Nancy, I've never prepared this, but it looks good...

SLICED OKRA AND SHRIMP

1 lb. okra
Pam
1 tsp. olive oil
1 med. onion, coarsely chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded & coarsely chopped
4 lg. tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped (ugh!)
1/2 C. dry white wine
2 Tbls. lemon juice
1 Tbls. chopped fresh cilantro
freshly ground black pepper (salt omitted)
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined

!. Rinse the okra and pat dry. Cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Spray large skillet with Pam and saute onion and green bell pepper and toss to coat evenly. Stir in the okra and cook over medium heat until the onion is limp.

2. Add the tomatoes, wine lemon juice, cilantro and pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes begin to disintegrate. Add the shrimp and continue cooking for 3 minutes or until the shrimp turns opaque. Spoon over hot rice to serve.

 

[Wise]

Nancy,

I saw Emeril cook this Fried Okra and Tomato Marmalade recipe. I'm not big on okra, but I wanted a bite when he was finished. This was on the episode called "The New Orleans Carribean Connection."


FRIED OKRA AND TOMATO MARMALADE

1/2 cup buttermilk
4 tablespoons hot sauce
2 eggs
32 okra pods, washed and cut in 1/2 lengthwise
Salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
Essence, recipe follows
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 recipe Tomato Marmalade, recipe follows

In a mixing bowl, combine the buttermilk, hot sauce and eggs. Mix well. Add the okra and season with the salt and turn to coat evenly, and let sit for 30 minutes. In another mixing bowl, combine the flour and corn meal. Mix well and season with the Essence.
Heat the oil in a large skillet to 360 degrees F.

Dredge each piece of okra in the seasoned flour coating completely. Fry the okra in batches for about 2 to 3 minutes, turning once to evenly brown. Remove the cooked okra, and drain on a paper-lined sheet pan. Sprinkle some Essence over the cooked okra. Continue to cook the okra in batches until all the okra is cooked. Serve while hot with the Tomato Marmalade.


Emeril's ESSENCE Creole Seasoning (also referred to as Bayou Blast):
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme


Combine all ingredients thoroughly.
Yield: 2/3 cup

Recipe from "New New Orleans Cooking", by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch, published by William and Morrow, 1993.



Tomato Marmalade:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup julienned yellow onion
6 large Italian Roma tomatoes, quartered
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon orange zest
1/2 to 1 cup fresh orange juice, from 1 to 2 oranges
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 bay leaf
Salt and fresh ground black pepper


In a saute pan, heat the olive over medium high heat oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and onions and saute until the onions are translucent and the garlic is fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste to the pan and cook for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until most of the moisture has been cooked out of the tomatoes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook until the liquid is reduced by 2/3, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and serve the marmalade in a heat-proof container either warm or room temperature.
Yield: a generous 2 cups



Other Recipes from this Episode
Caribbean-Style Rice and Beans
New Orleans-Style Red Beans and Rice
Haitian Sweet Potato Pudding Cake
Haitian Cremasse

 

[Phyllis]

Nancy,
Have you ever tried Epicurious.com? http://epicurious.com/
I put in a search for okra and came up with 31 recipes. It's a great site, with all the recipes from Gourmet and Bon Apetit and allows you to save your recipes on-line in your own recipe box.

 

[PJmomrunner]

Phyllis:

Thanks for posting that link. I made it a "favorite" as I am always looking for "what's for dinner." I use fatfree.com a lot. It's nowhere near as sophisticated a site at epicurious, but it's vegetarian and fatfree...and THAT's me!

P. J.

 

[hensylee]

Nancy, I used to make okra and tomatoes for my family. I used the canned kind and added some corn starch to thicken the soup. Served over biscuits, mashed potatoes or your choice of whatever you want (rice?) it's really good. I know you don't use anything canned because of the salt, but you could cook it from scratch (fresh). Really tasty. well, the family said it was.

Mother used to fry it in a bit of oil until all the inside stuff of the okra was gone.

Tho I am from the south, I don't really like okra. When eating out, I do get the fried sort on occasion.

Here in the south, they cook okra with something else in the same pot - Bonnie, is it turnip greens? ugh

 

[Phyllis]

I save my favorites in the recipe box, but also add them to my cookbook software as you never know when a site goes off-line. I use to wear out my cookbooks, but eventually got all my favorites on to my Master Cook software and now my recipes go everywhere I do on my laptop. Just print the recipe and throw it out when you are done cooking! Nice too when someone asks you for a recipe and you can just print it. The nice thing about Epicurious.com is that the recipes are fork-rated by users and be sure to read the user reviews- they often come up with suggestions on altering the recipe.

 

[Nancy]

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. In spite of the "slime", okra has a very nice flavor, but then we like eggplant and fiddlehead ferns too . I knew there must be some good recipes out there.

 

[terryj]

Nancy-I love eggplant. Do you have any other recipes besides the fried eggplant and eggplant parmigiana? My husbands diet is not salt restricted like Joes but we do have to keep it lower because of the blood pressure issues.