I don't have much experience with okra. There was a plate of ho-hum fried stuff at a ferry launch in one of the Carolinas a few summers ago. And a revelatory, fresh, crisp, spicy dish that I confidently ordered for Paul in an Indian restaurant in London after I pretended that I totally understood the menu (The Hindi words for eggplant and okra are pretty similar right? Maybe they both have b's?). But I had certainly never cooked it myself until last week. After Autumn from Mississippi assured me that it was perfectly respectable for me to start buying okra now, I brought some home from the farmers market on Saturday. And they are so pretty. The boy kept stealing raw slices off the plate. And actually, they're not bad this way. Does anybody here... maybe sliver them in salads? Any raw okra experience in the house?
While I am looking forward to trying Damon Lee Fowler's recipe for whole baby okra in olive oil that he assures me will convert any avowed okra detractors, and Autumn tells me that stewing them babies with tomatoes is the best way, I didn't have the tiny specimens that Mr. Fowler's recipe calls for, nor the tomatoes to go Autumn's route, so we fried them.
And this is certainly not a bad way to go. Really, coat anything in corn meal, pan fry it, and it's going to be good. Also, I really like how the natural glue that oozes from cut okra is put to good use in adhering corn meal to itself. Cool. We used
this incredibly simple recipe.
