Saturday, August 28, 2010

Amazing Grace (& Greens) of Okra Leaves

Well  “I just went ahead and did it!” No--though not as exciting as a facelift--I ate okra leaves. Now you probably have to be fairly desperate to eat okra leaves, which I found out through firsthand experience, since they are not easy to soften up for eating.
But--missing the kale and Swiss chard of last winter, I have been really craving greens and a recent article I read online suggested that okra leaves can be eaten. I figured that I had nothing to lose but 20 minutes.

clemson okra plant on left           silver queen on the right
I chose Clemson okra leaves instead of Silver Queen because they don’t have the fur-like texture of the Queen and they are smaller, thinner, and much prettier. They look almost like a fall leaf! Clemson leaves are actually a little darker, shinier and smoother than Queen, but are somewhat stiffer with a reddish vein running up the middle.

I chopped them lengthwise in a wide julienne strip to break down some of the stiffness although this wasn’t much help since the strongest veins run lengthwise. When I started cooking them I got excited because they got really dark, looked like turnip greens, and started to smell really good! However, the stiff leaves would not succumb to steaming.  So I tried stir-frying them in olive oil figuring that would break them down. No luck--but one thing I am not is a quitter. I ended up adding water and turning up the heat. I finished them off by braising them for quite awhile. Though they never quite surrendered to “the greens” texture I am familiar with, after all that effort I ate them anyway. At this point, I expected something akin to seaweed (not a favorite) but I was in for a pleasant surprise!

Though I could not chew through many of the small vein-y stems that ran through the medium-sized leaves, the flavor was so intensely greens-like that I felt transported to eating collards. The flavor was so delicious! (No lie) that I chewed the flavored out of them and discarded the pulp. Surprising, I actually managed to eat several whole small tender leaves. All in all, it was worth the 45 minutes (!) of effort to get that greens flavor. Next time, if there is a next time, I go straight to braising. Hey, when you want greens badly enough…

Related to my adventure, an interesting experience from a fellow blogger... He had more luck cooking okra leaves than I did but it turns out his leaves were not from an okra plant. After reading his account, I am still motivated to try again. Who knows? I may just try the Silver Queen okra leaves, fur and all!



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