Okra Stir Fry

After my yesterday´s contribution to Coffee´s MBP, I was challenged again. Nupur of One Hot Stove is almost at the end of her successful A-Z Indian Vegetables Online Food Event.

The letter of July is 'X'. We are supposed to cook something from a vegetable that we have never cooked before or never tried before.

.... Honestly speaking, I am not of Indian origin, just an obsessed Indian cuisine fan. I come from Slovakia, lived and travelled the world and now I live in a little town in southern Sweden. Even though the life here gets more and more vivid and open-minded everyday, it was only recently that locals have opened special Asian stores with 'weird' food items from all over the world. It has turned out to be my favorite place to go on a weekly basis to shop and try something new.
So it looks like mysterious 'X' is my way of everyday cooking :)

I visited my favorite local Asian store to find today´s 'X' vegetable. And there it was.... OKRA.... Ok, I know that I just probably discovered America with this, but please, don't laugh and take into consideration my background and places I come from... So yes, I have to admit, not only I have never cooked with okra, I have NEVER eaten okra before.

Simpler as that, I decided to make the simplest Indian Stir-fry... Not because I couldn't find the right curry recipe to make, but only because I didn't want to 'kill' the flavor of okra. So I went for a simpleton:

OKRA STIR-FRY:

Spice ladder: ***

prep time: 15 mins
serves: 2

200g okra
1 tsp salt (+ a pinch)
1 tbsp oil
2 onions
2 green chilies
1/2 tsp cumin seeds

Wash the okra and soak with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes. Strain and rinse. Cut off the ends and chop into 1/2 inch pieces. Meantime, chop the first onion finely and slice the other one very thinly.
Heat the oil in a large pan and brown the onions. Add chilies and continue frying. Crush the cumin seeds in a mortar. Add to the mixture and fry for another 30 seconds. Add the okra and salt, stir well. Cook uncovered, over the low heat. Cook until done, stirring occasionally.

I had a lot of fun making it. I enjoyed the sliminess of raw okra gooying around my fingers and knife :) Note of explanation: I tend to find a morbid excitement in weird unusual food tastes or textures... Other than that, the dish came out just fine. Served together with elaborate dal curry topped with tadka, it made a scrumptious looking colorful dish. See for yourself:














We had this one for dinner together with a dal curry and tadka.

UPDATE (July 28th) :
Today, I enriched the recipe with 1 tsp mustard seeds, curry leaves and 1/2 tsp urad dal and added to the cumin seeds (see the recipe above).