Food: Fried Okra Tutorial

Have you ever had fried okra? I had heard of people eating it before, but personally, I had never seen the stuff let alone ate it until I was at my sister-in-laws house recently. Being me... I am willing to try anything once, so I give it a go, and it is actually good. I was expecting something horrible, but I was surprised.

Ok, eating it is one thing, but making it is another. Even if I did want to make some, I had no clue how. So my wonderful sister-in-law took pictures for me yesterday when she made fried okra for her family and sent me the info on how to make it. Being her kind self, she gave me permission to pass it along to you as well.

So what is Okra? Okra is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods... according to Wikipedia. All I know is it is green, for sale at the farmers market, edible, and pretty tasty too.

Here is what it looks like:

To make fried okra you will need to wash it, chop off the top and the tip and toss them in the trash, and slice the remaining middle section into bite-size pieces like so...

Grab yourself a bowl and mix up the batter. All you need is 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, 3 tsp of salt and just enough water to make it the consistency of pancake batter approximately 1 cup. 

Pour your okra bits in and cover them with batter

and fry them up in hot oil. As you can see Melanie fried hers in a cast-iron skillet, but any deep skillet or cooker will do.

Fry them until they are golden brown then lay them on a plate covered with a paper towel to catch any excess oil.
That is it. Let them cool just a couple minutes and eat while they still very warm. Enjoy!
I shared this post at Homestead Revival.