For this one, I combined two recipes I found online – one for plain fried okra and another for an okra “stir fry”. I ended up with a dish that had crispy fried okra but wasn’t dry. We served it up on brown rice.
Ingredients:
- a few cups of okra
- corn meal
- a cup or two of diced onions
- a cup or two of diced tomatoes
- some fresh thyme
- salt and pepper
- a teaspoon or so of lemon juice
- Prep the okra. Slice it up into 1/4 or 1/2 inch slices, and put it in some cool salty water for a while. You can stuff it in the freezer while you do the dicing.
- Drain the okra, and combine it with enough corn meal to coat it well. It will be sticky – hey, it’s okra!
- Pan-fry the okra in enough oil so everything can brown. You’ll probably need a 1/4 inch of oil in the pan to get a good crispy fry, or you can use a lot less to make it healthier by using a good skillet – this is the kind of thing that’s totally up to a chef’s discretion! You want to make sure you cook the okra enough to make it soft, though. Try a bite to make sure.
- In a wok, saute the oil and onions first, then throw in the tomatoes, thyme, salt, pepper and lemon juice.
- Follow up by combining the okra into the wok mixture. Serve it up over rice, pretty quickly so you’ve got crunchy and juicy all in one. Yum!
Sorry the last pic is blurry… I’m such a rookie!
One thought on “Crispy Okra Stir Fry”