Okra is a contentious vegetable. It’s one of the most southern of vegetables and as much a part of southern cuisine as collard greens and field peas, but it’s far more controversial in the southern kitchen than those comforting, homey sides. Folks love okra or they hate it. No one—veritably no one—is in the middle.
Okra lovers passionately love okra in all manners of being, all shapes, forms, and means of preparation. Boiled, fried, steamed, grilled, broiled, pickled, raw, whole, sliced, julienned—you name it, okra lovers love okra. Those who hate it think it’s slimy, gooey, and gummy. In my opinion, they just haven’t met the right okra.
As a southern food writer, I embrace my membership in the former camp. I love okra. I enjoy it cooked in a myriad of ways and combinations. And I love a challenge. I will cajole, entice, and seduce doubters into becoming believers. I rejoice in converting people to the joys of cooking, eating, and savoring okra. I’m an okra missionary.
The recent upsurge in the popularity of southern cooking across the United States has brought renewed attention to okra. Chefs and home cooks across the country are exploring okra dishes far beyond gumbo. Heirloom okra seed packets are finding their way into the hands of gardeners all over the South. The long, slender, fingerlike pods of Red Burgundy; multicolored Hill Country Red okra, which is perfect for pickling; and short stubby pods of Star of David are joining the popular Clemson Spineless in the southern garden.
Okra thrives in the South. It loves the heat. The plant soars majestically as tall as ten feet high and produces large leaves and luxurious flowers that resemble hibiscus. Indeed, okra is a member of the mallow family, along with hibiscus, hollyhocks, and cotton, other familiar plants in our subtropical region.
Paper-thin, butter-yellow, wrinkled petals whirl together and are each punctuated with a brilliant dot of burgundy near the okra flower’s center. Out of this shoots an erect stamen dusted with vibrant yellow pollen. Once unfurled, the petals wilt in the afternoon and usually fall to the ground the following day. The plant is sensual poetry.
Okra not only has an enticing flower, but it’s a seductive vegetable as well. No other vegetable in the southern garden shares its particular colors. Within the pods is a generosity of seeds, nestled in orderly fashion in chambers. The slender, curving fingers are covered with the palest, most delicate down. The plant is lush, fecund, and sultry yet hearty, robust, and sturdy. Okra is overtly feminine and masculine all at once. The plant seems to embrace adversity, tolerating poor soil as well as being among the most heat- and drought-tolerant vegetables. Okra willfully extorts the heat of a scorching southern summer like a Tennessee Williams character, making it a perfect match for the Deep South.
Okra can be prepared in a vast number of ways. I enjoy it stewed and so slick it barely needs chewing. Crisply fried, grilled with charred bits, roasted and chewy, or in a soup or stew, I love okra. I like to think of it as the next asparagus. It’s only a matter of time before the love of okra spreads. I’m convinced.
Okra is perhaps most famous as a common ingredient in the classic Louisiana dish, gumbo. (Okra helps thicken Creole gumbo; the other choice for thickening gumbo is filé, or sassafras powder.) It has a long history in Louisiana, where it was popular with the French colonists and thrives in the moist heat. Much of my childhood was spent in Louisiana—perhaps that’s where my love for okra took root. Or perhaps it was in my grandmother’s kitchen, eating crispy, cornmeal-crusted fried okra.
Fried okra is a southern staple. When I was working in France for cookbook author Anne Willan, we once needed okra to test a recipe. It was nowhere to be found in the local markets, so we had to order a case from the French wholesale market Rungis, on the outskirts of Paris, only to use less than a pound! The gumbo was a huge disappointment, falling short of Anne’s strict standards. With the rest of the case, I made fried okra, using the only ground corn available in France at the time, fine polenta, for the coating. Anne called it “popcorn-fried okra,” and it was a huge hit. I can pretty much guarantee that this was the only time in history that fried okra was enjoyed as a snack with apéritifs before dinner anywhere, much less in France. Another classic combination is okra and tomatoes. It’s a natural marriage; the flavors, textures, and growing seasons are made for each other. In fact, these two classic southern treatments are found in almost every country that has okra in its cuisine, India, Greece, and Egypt included. Both combinations clearly work.
Little is known about the early history and botanical distribution of okra, but it’s thought to have originated near the equator in Africa, in the area that includes present-day Ethiopia and the eastern portion of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It eventually made its way into northern Africa, the Mediterranean, and India before its journey across the Atlantic to the New World. According to The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, enslaved Africans brought okra to the Americas during the era of the West African slave trade.
There are two primary theories on the etymology of the word “gumbo.” The first suggests that in Bantu, the language family of southern Africa, which includes Swahili, okra is called ngumbo, and this is where “gumbo” originated. The second is that “gumbo” comes from the Portuguese corruption, quingombo, for the word quillobo, the native name for the okra plant in the Congo and Angola.
Okra is found, however, in regions well beyond Africa and the American South. The ancient routes by which okra was taken from Central Africa to Egypt to the eastern Mediterranean and to India are not certain, but we do know that okra is found in abundance not only in the United States, but also in East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. It’s also found in pockets in the Caribbean, as well as in South America. One thing is for certain—if the weather is hot, okra will grow.
Because I want this book to be a one-stop shop for okra, I have included information about how to cultivate and grow the plant below. Let’s dig in the dirt and find out more about our hot-headed, exotic edible.
Towering okra plants require a sturdy base. The root system consists of two parts: a shallow, spreading system that branches out to a distance of 6 feet on all sides of the plant and a deeply penetrating, well-branched taproot up to 2 inches thick and 4 1/2 feet deep.
The pale green okra stem is semi-woody and often tinged with darker green or red. It’s straight and erect with many short branches that are spaced approximately 4–6 inches apart.
The okra leaf is dark green and somewhat resembles a fig leaf. The heart-shaped leaves are approximately 6–8 inches across and up to 12 inches in length. They’re covered in a hairy, fuzzy down that, in contact with bare skin, produces redness and irritation. Harvesting okra can be somewhat challenging—in fact, the expression “it will eat you up” comes to mind. It’s advisable to wear long sleeves even in the hottest summer months when picking okra to prevent inflammation and itching.
Okra flowers are large, around 2 inches in diameter, with five white to yellow petals with a red or purple dot at the base of each petal. The flower lasts for only one day, then falls away. Each blossom develops a small green nub that becomes the okra fruit.
Okra is cultivated for its fibrous fruits, known as pods, which contain an abundance of round seeds. The edible, tapered pods are harvested while still tender and immature. The pod is an elongated, conical capsule that is, in fact, the ovary of the flower. Okra pods are usually pale green but sometimes red, maroon, or even creamy white, and they’re covered in fine down. The pod is comprised of five cavities containing ovules, or seeds. The degree of defined external ribbing depends on the variety. The heirloom variety Emerald is smooth and round, for example, while the external ribs of Eagle Pass are exceptionally well defined.
Each okra pod contains numerous smooth, white to dark brown, solid-colored or striated seeds. A 3-inch pod contains about 30–40 seeds. During the Civil War, when coffee was scarce and expensive due to the northern blockade, okra seeds were roasted, ground, and used as a coffee substitute. Having tried this in the interest of historical research, I will only say that this Confederate experiment seems to have been as much a failure as secession.
Okra seeds are the richest part of the pod, which has a high protein and fat content. The protein content of the seeds can be as high as 50 percent, depending on the variety. The seeds have huge potential as a source of oil, as coagulants, and for medical remedies that have yet to be exploited. There’s a great deal of online chat about okra seeds being used in diabetes prevention and maintenance, but this claim has not yet been sanctioned by traditional medical authorities.
There are fifty species of wild and cultivated okra around the world. (As an okra missionary, I feel compelled to start checking each one off my list.) According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, okra grows best in zones 4a through 11 in the United States. Okra is grown commercially in India, Turkey, Iran, West Africa, Yugoslavia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil, Ghana, Ethiopia, Cyprus, and the United States, especially in the South and California. One acre of okra plants usually produces 200–250 bushels of okra, or approximately 600–750 pounds. That’s a lot of gumbo.
“Open-pollinated,” “self-pollinated,” “heirloom,” and “hybrid” are terms you’ll hear often when buying seeds for your garden. “Open-pollinated” means the plant is pollinated by natural forces (such as wind or insects) without human intervention. “Self-pollinated” means the plant is fertilized by its own pollen. Okra is self-pollinating and produces flowers that contain both male and female parts. Problems occur when insects bring in other types of plant pollen, such as from other cultivars of okra, leading to cross-pollination. So be aware that if you grow several types of open-pollinated okra, they may crossbreed or cross-pollinate.
Quite a few heirloom okra varieties are now on the market, as well as those passed down through families. I love the names: Beck’s Big Buck and Hill Country Red are so evocative. Some people consider heirlooms to be any vegetable cultivars that have been grown by people for a certain minimum number of years. According to Lynn Coulter’s Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, some gardeners consider the minimum 50 years, whereas others won’t consider anything less than a century or even 150 years. However, Coulter writes, the main consideration is that heirlooms are always open-pollinated, most can reproduce themselves from seed, and they have adapted over time to a specific climate and soil.
A hybrid is the offspring of two different varieties of plants produced through human manipulation for specific genetic characteristics. Many organic gardeners are wary of the term “hybrid” because they think hybrid seeds have been developed by an unnatural process in a laboratory. So it’s important to distinguish between hybrids and GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. GMO seeds are altered in a laboratory using molecular genetic-engineering techniques, such as gene cloning or protein engineering. Hybrid varieties have simply been cross-pollinated by hand. The seeds from hybrid plants won’t produce plants identical to the parent plant. That’s why hybrids are not recommended for gardeners who plan to save seeds.
Increasingly popular heirloom varieties certainly have more diversity, but there’s definitely a place for hybrids in the okra garden. Hybrids are developed to create, in a way, a super okra from two different varieties that possess the most desirable size, flavor, development, disease resistance, etc.
Seed companies that sell heirloom okra varieties include Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seed Savers Exchange, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed, and Sustainable Seed Company. For hybrid varieties, take a look at Burpee or Park Seed catalogs. You can also find Bonnie Plant hybrid seedlings at your local big-box hardware and home centers.
Here’s a sampling of the diverse varieties of heirloom and hybrid okra to consider.
* Alabama Red grows 5–7 feet tall and produces an abundance of chunky red and green pods. Pods are ready to pick 75 days after seeds are sown.
* Beck’s Big Buck is a German heirloom from Malcolm Beck of San Antonio, Texas. The 6-foot-tall plants produce an abundance of large, fat, tender, fluted pods. Uniquely, young pods easily snap off the plants when they’re ready to be picked. Pods are ready for harvest in 75 days.
* Bowling Red Okra plants grow 7–8 feet tall and have deep red stems. The okra is long, slim, and red and green in color. According to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, the Bowling family of Virginia has grown this heirloom since the 1920s. It’s ready for harvest in 55 days.
* Emerald is a variety that was used by the Campbell Soup Company in the 1950s. The 5–8-foot-tall plants produce 6–8-inch round, smooth deep green pods. Emerald is ready for harvest in 50–75 days.
* Hill Country Red is a red and green plant that grows to 6 feet tall and produces fat, round, ribbed reddish-green pods. This Texas heirloom is a high producer, exceptionally drought tolerant, and ready for harvest in 64 days.
* Jing Orange is an Asian variety that grows up to 6 feet tall with red stems and green leaves. The pods are actually red, not orange, and are tender at 6–7 inches long. It’s drought tolerant, productive, and ready for harvest in 60 days.
* Perkins Mammoth Long Pod is aptly named as it grows to a height of 6–10 feet and produces up to 16-inch-long bright green pods. Okra is ready for harvest in 60 days.
* Red Burgundy plants have deep red stems, leaf veins, and pods. The plants average 4 feet in height and produce narrow, spineless pods that remain tender nearly to their mature length of 7–8 inches. This okra can be harvested early at 49 days.
* Red Velvet is a red heirloom okra variety with bright rhubarb-colored pods, deep red stems, and green leaves. The plants grow 5 feet tall, and the pods are best when 3–5 inches long. This variety is ready for harvest in 70 days.
* Star of David is an eastern Mediterranean heirloom. It grows 7 feet tall or higher and produces fat, round pods. Okra is ready for harvest in 60–75 days.
* Stewart’s Zeebest plants are bushy and 6–8 feet tall. The long, slender, curving pods are ribless and are said to remain tender even up to 8 inches long. Okra is ready for harvest in 77 days.
* Vidrine’s Midget Cowhorn is an heirloom dwarf okra from St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. The 3-foot-tall plants produce pale green pods up to 15 inches long. “Cowhorn” refers to the fact that the long pods curl and twist like the horns of a cow.
* Annie Oakley is a spineless variety that can be planted fairly close together. The tapered, slender pods remain tender when mature for longer than some other okras. Annie Oakley pods are ready for harvest in 50 days.
* Annie Oakley II plants grow 4–5 feet tall and produce 2–3 times the yields of open-pollinated heirloom varieties. Annie Oakley II is well adapted for the cooler climates and shorter growing seasons of the Upper South and North. This hybrid is ready for harvest in 50 days.
* Chant grows to 5 feet in height. The pods are 5–6 inches long and are ready for harvest in 55 days.
* Clemson Spineless was introduced in 1939 and accounts for the majority of both commercial and home planting. The plants grow to about 4 feet high and produce an abundance of dark green, slightly grooved, straight, spineless, pointed pods. Pods are ready to pick about 56 days after seeds are sown.
* Green Cajun Delight is very productive and has tender dark green pods. An All-American Seed Winner, it has plants that are of medium height at 4–6 feet. It’s an early variety, ready for harvest in 49 days.
If you just can’t wait to get that okra in the dirt, start the seeds indoors in peat pots under full light 3–4 weeks before the last spring frost date. Be warned, however, that okra doesn’t transplant very well—I’ve learned this the hard way. Or you can also start okra directly in your garden 3–4 weeks before the last spring frost date, as long as you cover the plants with a cold frame until the weather warms up. Some gardeners soak the seeds before planting to improve germination. This may help, but it also may kill the seedlings if the soil is too cold. The optimum soil temperature for seed germination is 70° to 95°. According to the Clemson University Extension Service, the preferred method to improve germination is to freeze the seeds before planting, which breaks the hard seed coat.
Plant okra in full sun—8–10 hours a day—for best productivity, and space the rows 3 feet apart to account for its wide root system. Make sure to position these large, tall plants in your garden where they won’t shade out smaller plants. Sow seeds 1 inch deep and 4–6 inches apart within each row. When the seedlings are several inches tall, thin the row so the remaining plants are spaced roughly 1 1/2–2 feet apart. I always dislike thinning out my plant babies, but the survivors are more likely to grow better as a result.
Okra grows best in loamy, sandy soil with good drainage and a pH between 5.8 and 6.5. Soil-testing kits are available at garden-supply stores. Your local County Cooperative Extension office will also test your soil sample for pH and nutrient levels at no charge or for a small fee. The soil analysis usually takes a few weeks and includes detailed results and suggested amendments specific to your area.
Okra thrives in hot, dry conditions; however, watering may be needed during the peak heat of the summer or an extended dry period. Adequate moisture is especially important during flowering and pod development. Thorough watering, preferably with a soaker hose or a drip irrigation tape, once every 7–10 days with about 1 inch of water is advisable during extended dry periods. If you use a sprinkler system, water in the morning so the leaves dry before dark. According to the University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, weed control is important, especially when the plants are small. Use a layer of organic mulch 2–3 inches thick to conserve moisture and control weeds.
Okra plants continue to flower and fruit for an indefinite time, depending on the variety, season, and soil moisture and fertility. In fact, regular harvesting stimulates production, so much so that it may be necessary to harvest every day. When you’re harvesting, check very carefully among the leaves and branches for pods. Okra goes from petite and edible to pithy and inedible practically overnight. If a few pods slip by you and grow into giants, prune them to keep them from exhausting the plant. Also, when harvesting okra, it’s best to use a paring knife or a pair of scissors to cut the pods from the stalks instead of pulling them off the plants. The plants will continue to produce until killed by frost.
To save the seeds for the next season, it’s best to let the pods dry on the plant. However, don’t wait too long or you may find yourself, literally, with an okra explosion. Okra belongs to a category of plants known as “explosive spreaders,” meaning the fruits explode at maturity and shoot the seeds several feet away from the mother plant. The seeds of okra pods may spread up to 2–3 yards!
Ants often seek out the sweet, sticky sap that comes off of okra pods and flowers, but they aren’t actually harmful to the plant. The insects found on okra vary, but flea, Japanese, and blister beetles are most common. Flea beetles chew small holes in the leaves, and Japanese beetles can quickly make a plant a virtual skeleton. Seek treatment at your local garden store. There are both organic and chemical methods for dealing with these pests, and you can always pick them off and dispose of them by hand. The more serious okra diseases include stem blight and wilt. A combination of crop rotation and good soil management is important for controlling these diseases. Tender young seedlings are also susceptible to root-decaying diseases. This problem is more prevalent when the crop is planted in wet, cold soil. Another potential problem is the rotting of the small pods immediately after the flowers drop. Planting the crop in full sun, spacing plants properly, and providing good air movement through the plants will help minimize this problem.
Root-knot nematodes are microscopic parasitic worms that can cause serious damage to an okra crop. They are most often a problem in sandy and sandy-loam soils and are found mostly in hot climates with short winters, so the South is teed-up for the pest. According to the Clemson University Extension Service, if a plant seems stunted, you should pull it out of the ground and check for galls or knots on the roots. If you find knots, nematicides are not suggested for the home gardener, as they’re expensive and highly toxic. An effective nematode-control program should include crop rotation and increasing the organic matter in the sandy soil by adding compost.
You’ve planted, tended, and watered. Finally, you have okra! Choose young pods, usually no longer than 4 inches in length, depending on the variety. There’s a reason the pods are called ladyfingers—for most plants, seek out pods smaller than a lady’s finger since the larger pods are generally tough and fibrous. Okra pods should be firm, unblemished, and brightly colored. Green is most common, but you may also find red or deep burgundy varieties, even pale green, almost white, at local farmers’ markets. Avoid limp, bruised, blemished, or moldy pods.
Frozen okra is an acceptable substitute and is most often found in cut pieces about 1/2 inch long, both plain and breaded for frying. It’s less common to find whole-pod frozen okra, especially outside of the Southeast, but it’s available.
The peak season for okra in the Southeast is May through October, although I’ve found it available at Indian markets nearly year-round. The primary growing season is, of course, summer, but okra is produced ten months out of the year in Florida. Okra is imported from Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America during the winter months. Okra doesn’t hold up well after harvest. As a cook and food writer, I encourage people to eat locally and seasonally. The food will simply taste better.
Store unwashed okra in a paper bag in the refrigerator for up to three days. If you have a bumper crop, you might want to consider freezing it. According to the National Center for Home Preservation, the smooth varieties freeze better than the ridged varieties because they don’t split as readily. Before freezing okra, it should be blanched to slow or stop the action of enzymes, which cause a loss of flavor, color, and texture. Blanching also brightens the color, helps prevent the loss of vitamins, and softens the pods so they’re easier to pack.
To freeze okra, select tender young pods and separate them into small pods (4 inches or under) and large pods (so you can package them separately and cook each size more evenly). Wash them under cold running water, then trim the stem ends. Working with about a pound at a time, blanch the pods in a large pot of boiling salted water for 3–4 minutes, depending on the size. Remove with a slotted spoon and shock in ice water to set the color and stop the cooking. Drain well. A word of advice: if you’re putting up lots of okra, freshen both the cooking water and the ice-water bath fairly often since the water can become a bit slimy.
Once the pods have been blanched and drained, arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet either whole or sliced into 1/2-inch pieces and then place the baking sheet uncovered in the freezer. Once the okra pieces are frozen, put them in an airtight container or plastic freezer bag. Because the okra was frozen in a single layer first, the pieces will stay loose and you can take out just the amount you need.
To prepare okra for cooking, wash the fresh pods under cold running water and pat dry. Trim the stem ends, taking care not to pierce the pods if using them whole. For faster cooking, cut the pods crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces. Some cooks, like my mother and grandmother, cut the entire stem cap off the pod. Many of the Mediterranean recipes I found while doing research for this book call for peeling the tough skin off of the conical cap, leaving the okra flesh below. I prefer to leave the entire cap on the okra, simply snipping the stem end before cooking to create a fresher, more tender cut than when the okra pod was harvested from the plant. I think the cap is pretty, and the whole pod is quite elegant, far more attractive than a decapitated okra pod.
The proverbial elephant in the room with okra is the slime, also known as mucilage or roping. The mucilage is a type of soluble digestible fiber. In the plant, it aids in water storage, prevents the seed from drying out, and assists with seed germination. Some folks don’t mind the slime; others consider it the downfall of okra. Here are my top ten cooking tips to bust the slime for those who don’t like it:
1. Choose small pods.
2. Wash and dry okra thoroughly. Very, very thoroughly.
3. Don’t cut okra into pieces; cook whole pods. Some of my recipes call for cut okra. To reduce the slime factor, adjust the recipe and cooking time to use whole pods.
4. If cutting okra into pieces, wipe your knife on a kitchen towel between each slice so as not to spread the slime.
5. Add an acid like tomato, lemon juice, vinegar, or wine when cooking.
6. Overcooking produces more slime, so don’t overcook okra.
7. Don’t crowd the pan when cooking, as the steam will produce more slime.
8. Cook okra quickly at high heat.
9. Don’t cover okra while cooking.
10. If okra is a component of a recipe, you can cook it separately, then add it to the finished dish.
Okra is a very healthy food and a potent antioxidant. It’s low in calories: 1 cup of raw okra has only about 30 calories and an impressive 66 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin K. Vitamin K is known as the “clotting vitamin,” as it’s necessary for blood to clot. Some studies suggest that it also helps maintain strong bones in the elderly.
Okra is also low in sodium, fat-free, and cholesterol-free. Okra is high in calcium; vitamins C, A, and B6; protein; folate; manganese; and magnesium. It’s also a good source of riboflavin, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, thiamin, and folate. It’s high in dietary fiber, with over 5 grams per 3 1/2-ounce serving. No doubt about it—okra is good and good for you.
Okra may be beneficial for people suffering renal colic, typically caused by kidney stones. And due to its high iodine content, it may be useful for those suffering from goiter, or an enlargement of the thyroid gland. Experiments are being conducted to discover if okra can help control blood sugar absorption, as claimed in natural-remedy circles. Last and perhaps most famously, okra prevents gas and is a very effective natural laxative due to its high fiber content.
As with all of the Savor the South® cookbooks, Okra shares a wealth of information about a classic southern ingredient. I’ve chosen to include both southern and global recipes in this book in order to see what an iconic southern ingredient like okra might look like in someone else’s skillet.
You’ll find fifty recipes in this book. The first section includes recipes from the southern kitchen that range from old-fashioned to chef-chic. The recipes in the second section span the globe.
I’ve maintained as much authenticity as possible in recipes from the various cuisines. Those recipes have been reviewed by experts in the respective cuisines and slightly adapted for the American kitchen. After all, both the South and the United States are diverse melting pots. Ethnic markets of many cultures can now be found in shopping centers and strip malls across the country, making it possible to obtain once hard-to-find ingredients. And, of course, nearly any ingredient is available with a handy search engine and online ordering.
Whether you’re an avid okra lover or just now exploring the joys of okra, I’m certain you’ll find recipes here that you and your family will savor.