Okra - This is Your Last Chance

This is it. The final Okra recipe to make any non-believer change his mind and follow us to the dark (or should that read ‘mucilaginous’?) side.
You may remember that we have tried out hardest to show glorious Okra in it’s most favourable light: homestyle, simmered with tomatoes, traditional-style in gumbo and given the catfish treatment by coating them in Fish-Fri and then plunging them in bubbling hot oil to produce a fun alternative to popcorn or canapés.
I had thought I had seen it all. In what other ways could Okra possibly be served that get the taste buds tingling with excitement just to look at it?
Enter cooking hero (at least to Shaun and myself), Tamasin Day-Lewis. With the possible exception of the Sologa (I spent many clumsy-fingered moments slaving over that in my non-artistic way), her second cookbook, Good Tempered Food is a hidden gem of dashingly unusual recipes that are much simpler to prepare than they look. I enjoy tricking people in this way. What cook wouldn’t get pleasure from being told “you must have spent hours slaving over this” when really you just tossed it together an hour before your guests arrived?
What interests me most about this particular book is the prolonged section on Indian food. Not curries or things from your local takeaway but food that Indians would actually eat and not just serve to beer-ed up stags on a Friday night.
These recipes are ingredient intensive. Even I, with my consistently jammed spice jar, had to do a little sniffing around to dig out some of these ingredients. They are not your usual supermarket fare. However, they are easy enough to find online (at least in the UK): Seasoned Pioneers and Natco are just two reasonably priced online spice suppliers. And the best thing about Indian spices? A little goes a long way.
Looking back to the success I had with deep-frying the diced Okra in Fish-Fri, I was intrigued by a photograph in Tamasin’s book, a ramshackle pyramid of red, green and yellow shreds – pepper, onion, ginger and, yes, okra. The vegetables are cut into thin, thin ribbons, then stirred together with gram (chick pea) flour, asofeteda, garam masala and a whole host of other spices, before this jewel-like mixture is dropped, fingerful by fingerful into hot oil. It takes no more than 30 seconds for the spicy coating to turn golden and crisp. Drain and then serve in heaping large piles straight away.
I defy any Okra hating person to identify the mysterious green shards as such in this flavoursome, crispy yet fresh tasting dish, perfect for serving instead of a bowl of tortilla chips or peanuts.
If you want to overcome your fear of Okra once and for all, or, if like us you bear no malice against this gentle, delicious and much-maligned vegetable, here’s how. Bear in mind that you will need to start checking out your local delis or online spice suppliers for some of these ingredients, particularly if this recipe also whets your appetite for buying the book from whence this recipe first originated.
This is my entry for this weekend's Weekend Herb Blogging, held by originator, Kalyn herself!
If this doesn't turn you into a fully paid up, banner carrying, badge wearing Okra fan, then I must turn to the final solution: Chocolate Dipped Okra....

AKRI BHINDI (CRISP OKRA) Taken from Good Tempered Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis
Ingredients:
225g Fresh Okra, tops removed and cut into long straggly strands
25g Red/Green Pepper, cut into thin matchsticks (you can use more if you want)
50g White Onion, peeled and cut gamine strips
1/2 Teaspoon Fresh Ginger, cut into a gangly julienne (I think I've exhausted all of the 'thin' metaphors now)
1/2 Teaspoon Carom Seeds
Pinch Asafoetida
Teaspoon Sea Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Chilli Powder
20g Gram (Chickpea) Flour
20g Cornflour
1/2 Teaspoon Fresh Coriander for a final scattering
Vegetable Oil for frying
METHOD:
Place the okra, pepper, onion and ginger in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix together all the other ingredients (except, of course, the coriander garnish and the vegetable oil) and sprinkle over the julienned vegetables, tossing thoroughly with your hands to ensure that everything is well coated.
Heat enough oil in a pan (maybe 3 inches up the side of the pan) until a piece of okra starts to sizzle when dropped in.
Carefully drop small handfuls in at a time, removing from the oil using a slotted spoon, when it turns crisp and brown, no more than 30/40 seconds.
Remove each crisp bundle to a plate lined with kitchen roll.
Serve on a large plate and sprinkle over the chopped coriander.
Enjoy!