Super Bowl Sunday (with Gumbo!)

Vegetarian gumbo with homemade crackers.

Gumbo is a thick soup, really more of a stew, which puts the natural sliminess of okra to good use. It comes to us from Louisiana, and so we felt it was appropriate to make as we cheered on the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV.

We had always thought of okra as the defining constituent of gumbo, but Wikipedia informs us that either okra or filé powder can be used as the thickener. (Filé powder is dried, ground sassafras leaves - we have yet to add it to our spice collection.) The recipe that we (loosely) followed actually called for both. Apparently this is not very authentic, nor is the addition of tofu. Gumbo would typically include shellfish, pork, or poultry.

In addition to the okra and/or filé powder, a roux base is used to make gumbo just a little bit thicker. To make a roux, flour is cooked in butter or oil over medium-low heat until it reaches the desired color, which can range from golden (a light roux) to copper-brown (a dark roux). Here, we started the gumbo with a dark roux.

To go with the gumbo, Giselle made crackers following Mark Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything. These made use of our half-white flour from Cayuga Pure Organics, and they were topped with salt and nigella seeds.

Tuesday: A late meal

Okra and chickpeas in tamarind sauce, on basmati rice.

This is a sweet-and-sour combination from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East. It's a favorite winter dish of ours because it can be made with ingredients that we almost always have on hand: frozen okra, canned chickpeas, garlic, and tamarind paste. (The dish is even better with curry leaves, but sadly those are harder to come by outside of Queens.)

Saturday night: red okra

Spiced okra and tomatoes over herbed couscous, with a glass of "Bittersweet" cider from Eve's Cidery.

This red okra actually dates from last week's greenmarket - we just hadn't gotten a chance to cook it until now. It held up very well in storage. Isn't it beautiful?



Okra is in the mallow family, which means it's related to hibiscus, cotton, and cocoa, and it probably originally comes from Ethiopia. This is the first time we've ever found red okra, which is a less common varietal than its green sibling. The pods are a beautiful lime-green on the inside, and though much of the color is lost in cooking, they do keep a reddish tinge.



This particular dish uses a Middle Eastern flavor combination: vinegar, cinnamon, parsley and mint. Like many okra preparations, it relies on an acidic ingredient - here, tomato - to cut the "gooey" texture okra has naturally.


Three colors of heirloom tomato, chilies, and white onion

Here the okra is chopped and braised in a deep pot with minced chilies; then the tomatoes, onion, and vinegar are added and allowed to simmer until the dish has a saucy texture. It's served over couscous which has been tossed with chopped mint and parsley.

Wednesday: Okra in Yogurt Sauce

Okra in yogurt sauce with whole-wheat pita. The recipe (bendakaya-perugu kura) is from one of our favorite food bloggers, Indira of Mahanandi.

Apparently, there are many people who don't like okra. Those people are crazy. Just saying.

How could you not like this precious little vegetable?



The common objection to okra is that it's rather slimy. In some recipes, that's actually desirable, but there are techniques to minimize the slime. The trick in this dish is to let the okra slices cook undisturbed instead of stirring them frequently - that allows a nice crust to form.