Old Newspaper Clipping – Pickled Okra Recipe

When we were visiting my parents, we went to lunch one day with them and some of their friends. One of the friends remembered that we grow okra in our garden, so she saved this clipping for us. I think she said she found it one of her mom’s cookbooks from the 50′s. I said something like, “Thank you! I’ll write it down as soon as I can so you can have the clipping back,” and she said, “No! You can keep it! I have no interest in eating okra.”

Well, sad for her that she doesn’t like okra, but I’m glad to have this little momento. I haven’t tried this recipe, but I do have another recipe for pickled okra that’s pretty good.

If you try this recipe, please let me know how it goes!

Tempura Fried Okra

Once again, we’re growing okra and it’s doing really well. We have 15 plants and have harvested from 10 of them so far. We mostly eat okra in soups, with beans, and fried. It can also be used in Indian curries and is called “bindi” in many Indian recipes. If you live in our city and want okra, we probably have some to share with you!

I used to think that the only way to fry okra was the traditional cornmeal method commonly used in the South. That is a great way to do it, but I haven’t been able to get cornmeal lately, so I’m using tempura flour which is available for less than 50 cents at the mini-mart. I’m sure you can get tempura flour in the US too.

Spicy Pickled Okra

I love the blog Homesick Texan because I am also a homesick Texan. Maybe I’m not as homesick as the author of the blog though because the last time I lived in Texas was when I was 8 years old. Still, I love a lot of Texas foods, so I enjoy reading that blog.

My grandmother used to grow okra in her garden in Kansas and I can remember helping her pick them. The plants were so tall! Now they’re still tall in my own garden, but not as tall as I remember them. They’re supposed to reach  6 feet!

Vegetable Flowers

okra flower

I’ve been amazed recently at the beauty of nonornamental flowers. We planted okra and squash for their vegetables, not their flowers! Did you know that okra is related to hibiscus? I guess that’s why it’s flowers are so beautiful.

The Garden

James has been doing a lot of work in the garden over the past month and the results are starting to show. It’s the end of the rainy season, so it’s a great time to start planting vegetables that would have drowned if you planted them 2 months ago (like lettuce, cilantro, dark leafy greens, green onions . . .)

So far the most exciting part of our garden is the okra – “tua lek” in Lao. It’s kind of funny that there’s a word for it in Lao because most people have never seen it or heard of it.