Okra question

[applestar]

Good to know. They started to sprout yesterday and are unfolding their first leaves. They must be loving the current heatwave! We have Heat and Air quality warnings for tomorrow....

[jeff84]

chopped and breaded okra is sold in the freezer section of my grocery store. if I had to guess they do them like other frozen, fried food. they bread and partially fry it in a deep fryer, then pull it out of the oil before its done cooking so it can be flash frozen and packaged.

so do it like you would if you were going to fry t, but instead of frying it up all the way lay the not quite done okra on a some wax paper in he freezer and oncets frozen tuck it away in freezer bags.

when you are ready to eat it, just take it straight from the freezer to the fryer, or even the oven. don't let it thaw, as you already know it will turn to mush

[Gary350]

I never had good cooked okra until I moved to TN. Other places I lived no one know what to do with okra, it was the nastiest, stickiest, slimmest, itchy stuff I ever saw. No one in the family grew the stuff. When I moved to TN 40 years ago people talked about how good okra is, I thought they were all nuts. One day I ate dinner at a buffet I got some of that golden brown fried crunch stuff WOW it was so good I went back for more. I ask someone, what is that stuff and they said, fried okra. If someone had told me that was okra I would have never tried it. There is a trick to cooking okra. I put 2 cups of flour in a large bowl, add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Most people in TN add 1/4 cup corn meal but I like it with no corn meal. Mix well then set it aside. Pick soft okra pods about 4" long slice them into 1/2" long pieces then stir them into a bowl of buttermilk let the soak about 20 minutes then drain about 20 minutes. Stir the okra pieces into the flour mix let it set and stir again about every 10 minutes for 30 minutes making sure none of the pieces are stuck together. Set it aside while the oil gets smoking hot. Set oil temperature on 400. Put deep fryer basket in the kitchen sink then dump in the okra. Shake the basket to get rid of all the extra flour. Make sure you deep fryer has about 5 times more oil than the quality of okra you have. If you cook too much okra at one time it cools the oil and does not cook crispy. You want the oil to stay smoking hot while the okra cooks. Shake the basket as it cooks in a few minutes all the okra will be golden brown and float to the surface of the oil. Lift the basket and let it drain for a couple of minutes. Dump okra on a paper towel it will soak up more oil. Serve while it is still hot and crispy.

[imafan26]

I have grown clemson spineless and really did not have problems getting enough. They grow so fast you have to pick them every other day. You don't want to leave old pods on the plants since that slows production. I don't need a gallon of them so I only grow about 3-5 plants at most.