Okra With a Twist: Crispy, Dry-Fried Okra

Wood-fired oven are not just for baking bread and pizza! If you utilize the full heat-cycle, as Richard Miscovich details in From the Wood-Fired Oven, you can make a wide range of tasty eats during just one firing—from roasting meats and vegetables to drying herbs.

With live-fire roasting, this recipe for Dry-Fried Okra comes out nice and crispy—an alternative to the more gooey okra you’d find in gumbo or stew. Warm up your kitchen this fall and winter with Dry-Fried Okra from Miscovich’s From the Wood-Fired Oven.

Although a little clarified butter or oil is used to wet the pan, this method is called “dry-fried okra” to emphasize that the dish differs dramatically from stewed and deep-fried versions. If you’ve always disliked okra in its gooey state (in stews and gumbos), you might like this crispy presentation. Okra is an easy vegetable to grow in the South and has lovely flowers. Our local farmer George Simpson usually has a plentiful supply, so we often get our okra from him and save potager space for growing other herbs and vegetables.

Recipe: Dry-Fried Okra

Dry-fried okra just beginning to brown

1. Cut up fresh and tender okra into ½”-thick cross sections.
2. Then very lightly dust them with equal parts cornmeal and flour to which salt and pepper have been added. (Dust the okra in a colander, sprinkling the breading mixture over the pieces and allowing the excess to sift through. This ensures a light application.)
3. Heat a small amount of clarified butter in a cast-iron pan.
4. Place the okra in the pan and sauté, tossing gently from time to time, until tender, crispy, and slightly browned.

These tasty, bite-sized bits of okra seem to shrink when you cook them, and I always wish we had cooked more.

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