Lady’s choice
MY favourite recipe for lady’s fingers is too simple to be even called one: Fry whole lady’s fingers until seared and tender, plate up and sprinkle with light soy sauce.
But any other way the vegetable is cooked is fine with me too: in fish curries, stir-fried with chillies, stuffed for yong tau foo – they’re all good. And I have no problem with slime. I can’t grow lady’s fingers myself (my own fingers are not green!) and I wish I could find young, tender ones in the market because they taste so much better, but I’ve learnt to live with what I can get.
My recipe is for a gumbo, a dish that is said to have Louisiana Creole origins. It’s often a surf-and-turf combination – a thick, soupy mixture of seafood, chicken and pork sausages – and the essential ingredient, okra (lady’s fingers).
The dish is thickened with roux (flour cooked in butter) as well as naturally by the mucilage in the okra – see, there is some good in slime.
Quick Chicken and Okra Gumbo
Serves 4
2 tbsp oil 3 boneless chicken thighs (about 300g), cut into 3cm slices salt and pepper, to taste 2 tbsp butter 3 tbsp all-purpose flour 1 medium onion, diced 1 medium green capsicum (bell pepper), diced 2 fat cloves garlic, minced 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning (see recipe below) 2 cups water 1 vegetable stock cube 1/2 (400g) tin tomatoes 120g lady’s fingers Cooked brown rice, to serve
1 tsp flaky salt 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp sweet paprika pinch of dried oregano pinch of dried thyme 1/2 tsp ground black pepper