Yesterday I hit the ingredient jackpot, and didn’t have to leave Anchorage to do it.
While sharing morning coffee with my friends Marie and Ankine, our conversation turned to the ingredients we bring home from our travels because they aren’t available in Alaska. Marie included dried okra in the list of foods that fill her luggage.
Dried okra? My ears perked up. I’d never heard of dried okra, and was full of questions. Where did the dried okra come from? How did Marie use it? How is the okra dried?
Marie opened the refrigerator and removed a jar of the tiniest okra I had ever seen. The 1” long baby okra were strung on cotton string like a necklace and dried until hard. The okra came from Turkey, via a California speciality market.
Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska has moved as of March 2011. To read this post please go to
http://www.laurieconstantino.com/hard-to-find-dried-okra-worth-seeking-out/
Please click on over and visit my new site. Thank you!
6 comments:
Thanks for filling me in on dried okra...I've never heard of it until now. You've also squeezed out a nice dish from it (okra).
Thanks from San Diego too! We just picked up dried okra at an Arab Market and had a tough time finding a recipe online. Lorrie
I just planted some okra seeds, for enough plants that I know I won't be able to use all the fruit. I'm the only person I know who likes okra, which definitely caps the usage. I somehow got the idea of drying it (must have read about it somewhere but now I have no recollection) with the vague idea of tossing it into soups. I googled for "dried okra," and had to laugh at seeing your familiar site listed first in google. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but...all roads lead to Anchorage, it seems. :-) Nice recipe, better than just tossing handfuls into soup.
This looks interesting:
http://www.saveur.com/article/Food/Fish-Baked-with-Dried-Okra
Thanks for the information on dried okra. I recently downloaded a copy of Cooking In Old Creole Days from Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project. There is a recipe that called for dried okra so I Googled it and found your site. I have okra planted in my garden which I usually cut up, place in freezer bags and put in the deep freeze. Drying the okra sounds intresting and I may give it a try.
Post a Comment