OT: Okra question. Swingman?

[Robatoy]

When cleaning okra for a gumbo, does one leave that little hat on?

[Swingman]

Yes ... all you have to do to clean okra is rinse it off. The smaller the okra, the more tender it will be and the less time it will take to cook.

[basilisk]

If the okra is small and tender, I leave the caps on and pick off the spines(if it has any, most store bought doesn't), if the okra is larger, I'll cut it up in chunks and discard the caps.

Off to the freezer to get some okra to thaw. :)

basilisk

[Swingman]

Most gumbo cooks use "cut okra" ... just slice/crosscut whole okra into wheels about 1/2" long. Not all that critical, but if you put cut okra in too early, it will all but disappear by the time the gumbo is ready to eat ... not a bad thing for some who don't really like okra.

[J. Clarke]

My mother always discarded the caps--I never felt any urge to eat them myself. They tend to be tough.

[Robatoy]

The little ones I have always left whole. It's more the bigger ones I was talking about. Those bigger little hats tend to get a bit woody. Other than that, I love okra.... in a weird snotty kinda way.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Circumcision for vegetables?

[Robatoy]

That is funny...

[Lee Michaels]

Is that a Jewish joke?

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:58:43 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy scrawled the following:

No, the hat and tail come off. Jes keep de goodness of de body. I gar-on-tee! Justin hissef tell me dis. Whooee!

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:19:47 -0600, the infamous basilisk scrawled the following:

I once bought a 6-pack of tomato plants. A short while later, 4 of them had green balls and two had green sticks on 'em. I was astonished when I finally got to pick the ripe okra from the two, as the plants and leaves looked identical sitting right next to the tomatoes.

I hadn't eaten okra since I lived in Arkansas, so it was a treat to have it fresh. I never did like the cardboardy caps, though, even on small, young okra. And the tips could be that way, too, so I always cut both ends off, as I do with green beans.

I remember watching Justin Wilson (The Cajun Chef on PBS eons ago) tell me to do the same thing to okra that I was doing. I buy frozen okra and put it in large pots of stewp I make. (Right, "stewp". It's too thick for soup and too thin for stew.)

[Doug Miller]

I never felt the urge to eat any other part of it either...

[Swingman]

If selected correctly, and fully cooked, the entire okra will be tender with most any cooking methods ... in a gumbo, it will mostly disappear before the pot is finished.

Me, I just do the EZ way, nightly, in season ... microwave in a covered pyrex dish for about 5 - 6 minutes, with a pat of butter and Tony Chachere's to taste.

[basilisk]

I roast okra too, only I coat it in olive oil, salt and pepper. in the oven at 400 for about 30 minutes. Concentrates the flavor and not near as slick as boiled.

Thanks to Robatoy, I just finished some along with a pork steak and cooked down and fried squash.

basilsik

[Swingman]

Probably have averaged eating okra half a dozen times a month for the better part of 60 years, particularly since it's been available frozen for the last 30 years or so, and before that we either froze it ourselves, or pickled it.

Being the cook in the family, I put it most of the weekly soups, and you can't say "gumbo" without the Trinity - chicken, sausage, okra - in S Louisiana where I come from, and I LOVE pickled okra!!

We grew it every summer on the farm as a kid ... anyone whose every picked okra on a sweltering hot day will know what a rash you can get from the leaves hitting a sweaty body when you're picking it.

I even took some okra seeds to England many years ago and actually got a couple of plants to bear one summer, although not enough for a gumbo. :)

[Lew Hodgett]

Somebody asked:

----------------------------------- You trot on down to the frozen foods department of your local market and grab a bag of frozen okra wheels which eliminates the problem.

Usually requires a beer to aid in getting bag open and distributing those little "wheels" as required.

Lew

[basilisk]

I raise most of the okra we eat and probably froze 40 lbs last year, but it is almost gone. Most people don't know what the food they eat is supposed to taste like, I will not eat a store bought egg, they are bland and tasteless same as most of the store bought veggies.

basilisk

[Swingman]

You can take the boy out of the country ....I've grown okra and tomatoes on the front porch in the midst of this urban jungle. :)

And just finished this "urban chicken coop" a couple of weeks back:

the coop was for my partner in Austin ... they can have chickens in the city limits there, but before she moved to Austin we had fresh eggs from her hens weekly for the past fifteen years. Since I finished my last house in Austin a couple of months ago, I've been reduced to store bought brown eggs lately.

[basilisk]

That's a nice looking coop, most of my chickens free range but I've got a couple of portable coops I use sometimes, they look more like something extracted from a shanty town.

basilsik

[Swingman]

This coop style is big in Europe and Britain ... they call the style an "Ark", and, depending upon size, they will hold 4 to 6 hens for the backyard chicken raiser ... perfect for urban use and they are growing in popularity here in the US.