Harvesting and Cooking Okra

Now that we are getting regular rain, our okra is beginning to produce nicely.  The hot, dry summer really cut our okra yield short.  We'd normally have a lot of okra cut and frozen and/or pickled by now, so we've got to try to make up for lost ground. Okra grows so fast, that you need to harvest it every day or you run the risk of your okra getting too big and the pods will  get "woody" and inedible.

Here is an okra flower.  The bloom lets you know that more okra is on the way.

We grow both Clemson spineless okra, which is green, as well as Burgundy okra, which is... well, you can guess.

Beautiful burgundy okra

It doesn't take long to pick a bucket full to bring inside.

We put them in a colander and wash them up.  Sometimes they'll have bugs, especially ants, on them.  For some reason fire ants are attracted to the okra pods.  They'll climb up the okra stalk and to the pods.  When you pick them, they'll bite you.

Cleaning up okra

In order to prep the okra for eating, I chopped them up in half inch slices.  Normally, at this point we'll cook the okra slices down with onion, tomatoes, and a little lemon juice (to knock down the 'slime' factor). Today, we're cooking them a little differently - Okra Curry, from a recipe that was emailed to me.  We like the bold, spicy taste of it and are always looking for new recipes and new ways to use the fresh produce that we have coming in.  

Sliced okra

We finely mince an onion and a bulb of garlic and saute in butter until they are translucent.  Then we add the sliced okra into the pot and stir.

Now we'll add the fragrant spices.  The recipe calls for a teaspoon of chili powder.  We substitute 1/2 teaspoon of our homemade Criolla Sella pepper for half of it.

To that we'll add 1/2 teaspoon for turmeric

And then we add a healthy dash or two of ground cumin.  To the top of that we finely slice a chili pepper and stir it all up to mix in the flavors.  

We'll cook that over low heat until the okra is tender.  The fragrant dish fills the kitchen with a nice aroma the lures everyone into the room.

Okra Curry

You'll notice that when you cook burgundy okra it turns green.  Regardless what color it is, this is a tasty dish.  Yum!