Okra Oven Fries

Deep Run Roots

It's possible to have crispy okra without slime and NOT fry it? Be still my heart.

More often than not in North Carolina, the okra you can order in restaurants is fried. Sometimes you might get stewed okra with tomatoes, but that's pretty rare. Of course, if you find a New Orleans style restaurant, you'll find okra in dishes like gumbo. But the inherent slime in okra often needs a liquid base to dissolve into (it can help thicken it without flour) or a crispy coating and a hot fry to mitigate it. But this recipe manages to get rid of the slime with just a little oil, a hot oven, and plenty of room. The result is a crispy, crunchy okra just as suited to dipping as any of the whole (or close) fried okra we've made previously on the channel.

If you're following a low-carb diet, this is probably the best way you could eat okra, too!

I found this recipe here: https://www.rachaelrayshow.com/recipes/23534_vivian_howard_s_okra_oven_fries

Captions

[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books with  heather on this episode we are going to be  
[00:08]: working once again from deep run roots  it's been a while since we've done that  
[00:12]: um but i've been wanting to make these since last  year and it's a very seasonal item so we're going  
[00:20]: to be making okra oven fries so this is not fried  okra it is just they're cut and cooked in the oven  
[00:30]: and should be crispy and delicious and we're going  to keep our hands our fingers crossed that it is  
[00:36]: not um slimy because my husband is a little  concerned that they might be slimy so i have my  
[00:43]: okra here and some of them are different sizes uh  but so she says um to either half or quarter these  
[00:54]: lengthwise so if they're large i'm going  to quarter them kind of like this one
[01:02]: and then if they are smaller i'll just  half them she did leave um the tops on  
[01:09]: this i'm just cutting off sort of the brown  bit of off the top but otherwise leaving them
[01:19]: whole leaving the top on i don't think you could  do this with frozen okra you can make fried okra  
[01:27]: from frozen okra especially if it's sliced because  usually it is pre-sliced when you buy frozen okra  
[01:33]: but you can't make this with frozen so i kind  of had to wait until it came back into season  
[01:39]: so um i have my oven heated to 400 degrees um  because that is what we are i hate this they're  
[01:50]: kind of anyway they're kind of twisty and this  makes it a little bit more difficult to get a good  
[01:57]: quarter on those but anyway um our oven is already  heated to 400 degrees and i'm gonna just keep on
[02:06]: slicing my okra and probably not being quite  that precious about it honestly um and as soon  
[02:14]: as we're done i'll show you what we need to do  it do with it before we put it in the oven um  
[02:20]: so i've cut all of my okra this is quite a lot  i think i had a lot of small ones to make up the  
[02:27]: uh amount that she asked for but so i'm going  to toss it in this bowl with some olive oil
[02:44]: there we go
[02:48]: we need some salt you know that's pretty standard
[02:55]: and the unusual ingredient here is  some coriander so just ground coriander
[03:11]: i'm gonna get some more of this sometime soon  there we go and then just a little bit of pepper
[03:27]: all right and we're going to toss this  i want to see how my tossing skills go  
[03:32]: you know i'm messy so we'll see
[03:48]: i feel like that got it pretty
[03:53]: well
[03:57]: uh combined there that they're all sort  of have some coriander on them at least  
[04:04]: because that i can tell all right so  let me clean this up just a little bit
[04:12]: so i have two baking sheets here because i  feel like we're not going to be able to give  
[04:18]: them enough room on one baking sheet uh so i'm  just going to try to put about half of them on
[04:27]: the other here
[04:30]: and then we're going to spread these out  i'm going to need a spatula anyway so i'm  
[04:34]: going to spread these out with my spatula and the  important part here is that these get um separated  
[04:44]: enough that there's that they don't steam so  if you know how if you're roasting vegetables  
[04:51]: and they you have too many on your pan they  don't get really roasty they just kind of steam
[04:59]: instead of getting crispy and beautiful so
[05:06]: almost done there i definitely  needed two pans for this for sure
[05:15]: all right so my preheated  oven i have i will have to
[05:22]: switch these around because you know i can't put  two pans on one rack they just don't fit that way  
[05:29]: um but i'm going to roast them  for let's see 15 minutes i think  
[05:36]: 10 minutes and then we're going to  take them out toss them around and then  
[05:43]: switch them around so rotate them if i have one  on the top and on the bottom they'll switch and  
[05:49]: turn around and all that kind of thing and then  we'll we're going to cook them for another 10 to  
[05:53]: 15 minutes but we'll be back here to show  you what they look like after 10 minutes
[05:59]: okay here is one of my pans after about  10 minutes and we're just supposed to  
[06:04]: toss it around and spread it back out um  and then i will take the other one out and  
[06:11]: do the same thing and when i put this one  back in i'll put it where that one was and  
[06:17]: you know rotate fairly simple so she says  um they will be done when they are let's see  
[06:28]: uh brown and crispy in a lot of places but  not doesn't smell burn so um she says 10 to  
[06:39]: 15 minutes i'll let you know how much longer it  takes for mine once i get them both back in there  
[06:47]: okay so this is after 10 more  minutes and i'm just gonna  
[06:52]: i'm that she doesn't call for this but i wanted to  see how they were doing and wanted to show you how  
[06:58]: they were doing so i feel like they need some  more time they're not crispy they're a little  
[07:04]: brown they certainly are getting a little bit  brown but they are not where i want them to be  
[07:10]: so i'm gonna put another timer for i'm gonna mix  them around give them another timer for another  
[07:17]: five minutes and check them and i'll let you  know how long it takes me to get the beautiful  
[07:23]: golden brown crispy okra fries that  are in this book just like the picture  
[07:31]: stay tuned okay so i decided that these needed  about 20 more minutes instead of 10 to 15  
[07:38]: and this is what they look like now i think  they're starting to be nice and crispy they're  
[07:42]: certainly not black so in my oven this is how  long it took so a total of about 30 minutes  
[07:50]: in a 400 degree oven and we're done i'll plate  them up and we'll let you know how they taste
[08:03]: on this episode of cooking the books with  heather you watched me make okra oven fries um  
[08:10]: i have to say it was a really easy way to  make okra uh especially if you don't like  
[08:16]: frying things it's a lot cleaner everything's in  the oven all you get dirty is a sheet pan or two  
[08:24]: and it ends up with crispy uh delicious okra with  no slime um that you can eat like french fries  
[08:36]: so yeah i'm all for this recipe and  i will definitely be doing it again  
[08:40]: um and uh yeah i certainly recommend  that if you think you don't like okra  
[08:50]: you should try it if you think okra is always  slimy you think anything but fried okra is awful  
[08:58]: you should try this recipe as long as you follow  the directions and make sure it has plenty of room  
[09:03]: on your sheet it should work out just fine might  have to cook it a little bit extra like i did  
[09:10]: but it should work out just fine also i was  going to say there's ground coriander in this i  
[09:17]: couldn't i couldn't pick that out flavor  wise especially we did dip it in some i think  
[09:24]: ranch dressing the ranch ice cream that we had  from the previous fried okra in this recipe we  
[09:31]: had some i let it melt we dipped it in that  so that sort of hid any of those flavors  
[09:36]: although i did try it by itself um it's not  a huge flavor so if you don't like coriander  
[09:41]: you can make it without you could add other  flavors if you like but i think this is a  
[09:46]: great recipe you should try it and if you enjoyed  watching me make this please give me a thumbs up  
[09:51]: hit the subscribe button and come back  and watch me make something else next week