I’m delighted each week with the little bag of okra. I’m the only one in my house who likes okra, and I am glad to have it all to myself. But there was one year I grew a row in my garden, and each week harvested six pounds of okra. For weeks and weeks … six pounds of okra, every week. At that time there were three of us at home who liked okra, but even so, after a week or two, nobody really wanted okra with every meal and we needed an alternative. And so we made okra pickles. JCT Kitchen’s Ford Fry will be demoing okra pickles with Bloody Marys this weekend at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. Yum.
Here’s a recipe that Steven Satterfield of Miller Union gave out earlier. Your little bag of okra is probably just enough for this recipe. You can make these pickles and just keep them in the refrigerator, or for shelf life, carefully boil the jars and lids and then process the pickles in boiling water for 10 minutes before storing in a cool place. Properly processed, they’ll keep for about a year.
Ingredients:
1 pound okra, with caps 6-8 dried hot chiles 1 sliced yellow onion 2 tablespoons coriander seeds 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 1/4 cup kosher salt 1 quart apple cider vinegar 1 1/2 cups water
Preparation:
Wash okra. With clean hands stuff the okra into jars and pack tightly. Add 1-2 dried chiles 2-3 slices of onion per jar, and distribute the spices evenly among each jar. Meanwhile, bring the sugar, salt, vinegar and water to a boil in a nonreactive saucepot. Ladle the hot vinegar brine into the jars and quickly seal them. Process in a boiling water bath if desired. If you don’t process them store in the refrigerator and allow at least 5 days before opening so the okra will “pickle”.