It's Dee's fault! Or, to be more exact, Annie Mae's fault. Annie Mae ( I don't think I know her, although it's possible I have met her) is 96 years old. If that isn't enough to marvel at, she also has a garden. That she apparently prepares, plants, tends, and harvests...herself. And if that isn't enough, she also shares them with friends. And if that isn't enough, when she drives herself to the friend's house, the vegetables are washed and ready to cook! In the case of the okra that she took to Dee, not only were they washed, but also sliced...as precisely as if she had some kind of magical okra slicing machine. They were not in angled, uneven, haphazard shapes...they were all about 3/8 inch thick. No pointy ends or stem ends to be found. In short, they were beautiful!
Dee wanted to share with me, so she brought a large ziploc bag of the little gems over. One look at them propelled me into action and the ban on frying was suspended.
While the harvest is going on Wayne often has a later lunch, so when 1 PM rolled around I decided to get started on cooking that beautiful okra. I thought that the Louisiana Fish Fry product would really be good on it, but wanting to make it crispy enough to satisfy him, I poured a small amount of Egg Beaters into a pan and added a little cold water to thin it out. I dropped about 1/2 the okra in and stirred it all up so that each slice was moistened. Then I dropped the whole batch into a large plastic container along with the Fish Fry coating and shook it up good. I heated oil in a large stainless skillet and then added about half of the coated okra, prying clumps apart so that each slice had it's own space. After a few minutes, I turned them all over and let them cook a few minutes longer. I fished that batch out to drain and put the remainder of the coated okra into the oil and repeated the process.
Wow! I want to tell you that okra was absolutely delicious! If Wayne had walked in at that moment, he would have been in hog heaven. Instead, he showed up about an hour later. It was still good, but not nearly as good as when it first came out of the skillet.
I didn't season the okra at all...the Fish Fry coating has plenty of seasoning in it. There are several variations of the product at the grocery store. This one has a lot of yellow on the little package and it is "New Orleans Style." The photo of the okra is only half the batch that I fried, the rest was still in the skillet.
Can't wait to cook up the remainder of the okra that Dee brought over. This time I'll wait until Wayne's is in the house to get it started. They've finished shelling corn, so meal time might be a little more predictable.
Thanks, Dee! Thanks, Annie Mae!
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