Stuffed bhindi (okra)

One of my favourite aunts is my B mami. Nobody can help liking her, she’s just so kind, good-natured, fun and always good for a laugh. And to top that off, she’s also an absolutely amazing cook. She can make better bhelpuri and pani puri than anyone I know, and the other North Indian dishes she makes are just as awesome. Maybe it’s because she lived for so many years in the North (and north-east), and perhaps learnt them from North Indian friends, but I personally don’t think that’s the real reason. The real reason is that she’s just an awesome cook, full stop.

My visit to their place in Mathura (along with my youngest aunt and her daughter who was maybe three or four years old then) is still vivid in my memory. This was over 15 years ago, but good times leave their imprints on your brain, don’t they? But – and I don’t know just how much I should be embarrassed by this – one of THE most enduring of those memories was the train trip back. What’s embarrassing about a train trip memory, you ask? Well, the answer is that it’s not so much the train trip that was embarrassing, as my memory of WHY that trip was memorable. I might as well spit it out (not literally) – it was the bharwan bhindi (okra stuffed with a mixture of spice powders) that B mami had packed for our train journey, with instructions to eat that first in case it turned bad in the heat.

That was the best bhindi I’d ever had, bar none. I’ve made this before, but not to my mami’s recipe. A few weeks back I emailed her asking for her recipe for bharwa bhindi, which she kindly sent me. I then sat on it for a few weeks more, not because of my usual procrastination but because I just didn’t get a chance to lay my paws on fresh okra. That occasion happened a couple of weeks back and I made B mami’s bharwan bhindi rightaway. (That this recipe didn’t get posted rightaway was due to a combination of procrastination + lack of time + unfamiliarity with online photo editing software).

The okra was pretty good – not as good as mami’s (no surprise there) even with the benefit of her recipe – but a creditable effort, nonetheless.

Recipe for: Stuffed bhindi (okra)



Ingredients:

250 gms ladies finger/okra/bhindi
1/2 tsp haldi (turmeric) powder
1 tbsp dhania (coriander) powder
1 tbsp jeera (cumin) powder
1 tsp chilly powder (or to taste)
1 tsp aamchur (dried sour mango) powder - optional
1/4 tsp hing (asafoetida) powder
salt to taste
oil as required (about 2 tbsp)
1 medium onion, grated or very finely minced



Method:

1. Mix the various powders together to make the stuffing masala and check that it tastes okay to you. Reserve.



2. Cut the tops off the okra (I leave the tail on but it can also be removed if preferred.) Make vertical slits in each one, taking care not to go right through to the other side.



3. Carefully stuff each okra with the masala powder, using a small blunt butter knife



until all the okra is done. You can use any remaining masala on the okra as it cooks, it's up to you.



4. Now heat 1 tbsp oil in a non-stick saute pan and add the finely minced/grated onion.



5. When the onion is soft and beginning to turn colour, add the stuffed okra. Carefully turn over the okra so that the onions are distributed more or less evenly.



6. Fry the stuffed bhindi on medium-high, turning them over occasionally. Add more oil as required. Don't cover the pan or the okra will become gooey. Add salt to taste when the okra is cooked and slightly crisp, with brown spots.



Serve the stuffed bhindi hot with rotis or as a side dish with rice and dal.

Take-away style bhindi (okra) bhaji

Take-out. Take-away. Call it what you will, all it means is that you're going to be eating something cooked in some pokey little kitchen by Bangladeshi cooks (most likely if it's a takeaway in the Midlands) who labour under the misapprehension that a bucketload of oil is a good substitute for taste and flavour. I might be doing a disservice to the rare takeaway place which doesn’t follow this rule of thumb, but on the whole, my statement holds true, sadly enough.

I don’t see why takeaways shouldn’t be able to do good, healthy, wholesome food, considering they have at hand all the resources they need. Various friends have asked me – probably only in jest – why I don’t start my own takeaway, but the thought just doesn’t appeal. I do like cooking, but if I had to do it all day every day, whether from home or a business premises, I would come to hate it very quickly. (I admit that about the only activity - if you can call it that - I could or would do all day, every day, all the time would be reading... but nobody’s paying me to read books just for personal enjoyment, more’s the pity.)

Anyway, since I had a couple of packets of okra from India (via Tesco, of course - "eat local" doesn't even come into the question!) to use up and Pete likes okra, I decided to make a restaurant-style side dish – with plenty of green chillies (fried separately) for myself, and with no chillies for him. Both versions were just so simple but tasty.

To harp away on the same topic, I honestly don’t understand how the takeaway chefs could oilify (new word there) a basic dish like this and ruin it. Shame that most takeaway eaters will never realise what they're missing in the way of authentic fare. If they only knew...

Recipe for: Take-away style bhindi (okra) bhaji



Ingredients:

500 gm okra (about 4 cups, sliced 1" long)
2 small onions
2 small tomatoes
1 large garlic clove, sliced into thin matchsticks
3-4 green chillies, sliced diagonally into strips
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp Kitchen King masala (or use garam masala)
Salt to taste
2 tsp oil

Method:

1. Slice the tomatoes into 1/2-cm thick wedges and slice up the onions thinly.



2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds and turmeric powder; fry for 20 seconds. They should become a darker shade of brown.



3. Add the sliced onions and garlic, and green chilli strips (if using), and stir-fry till they begin to turn translucent, about 5 minutes.



4. Now add the okra and stir it in. Let it cook on medium-high heat, stirring once in a while.



5. Once the okra is cooked and the onions are nicely browned, add the tomato wedges.



6. Stir-fry on high for 2-3 minutes or till the tomatoes JUST begin to soften. They should not get mushy. Add the Kitchen King/garam masala and salt to taste, and mix it in. Cook the okra for another couple of minutes. Serve warm with chapaties and any dal.

Bhindi (okra) in mustard sauce

I guess it’s possible at any age to discover something you dislike at first taste – and just as possible to discover that you absolutely love something the existence of which you didn’t know till that first bite. And so it proved with a bhindi (okra) dish that a friend recommended at a Bengali restaurant called “Bay Leaf” that we went to when I was in Chennai earlier this year. (The restaurant, for those who are not in the know, is on a little street adjacent to Gangothree, the wurrrrld-phamous chaat place that’s been around since nearly forever on Cathedral Road - or since I’ve known it. But isnt that the same thing?)

I thought that everything that I tried at Bay Leaf was absolutely delicious, but the bhindi-in-mustard-sauce (shorshe bhindi, on the menu)was nothing short of a lip-smacking revelation. And yet, for many reasons, one being the fact that good, cheap okra is not easy to come by in Shrewsbury, and another being the blue funk that I was sunk in for weeks after my return, missing the three Fs (family, friends, food), it didn’t cross my mind to replicate the dish at home. Actually I didn’t even remember the existence of this beautiful Bengali dish... a bit strange, considering that the food I’d had was among the things I missed so much!

Then I came across the recipe on Sunita's World and instantly it took me back to how incredibly much I’d enjoyed shorshe bhindi at Bay Leaf. Luckily, I had the opportunity to indulge this memory because I’d just had a delivery of provisions and fresh (ish) vegetables in the post from an online store. Okra was one of the vegetables I’d ordered.

The problem with buying vegetables sight unseen is, of course, that you cannot trust to the quality or freshness. Most times, though, the vegetables turned out in pretty good shape, and the okra didn’t seem bad this time. Until my mother pointed out a fat green worm that was humping its way out of the paper bag. Uuuuuuuuugggggggghhh! The recipe might have ended right there in the dustbin, worm, bhindi, bag and all... and this post would probably not have seen the light of publication this side of 2009.

But luckily, my mother being less squeamish than me and far less tolerant of waste, she volunteered to sort the occupied/pre-nibbled vegetables from those that were edible. And thus did she save the day, the bhindi, the recipe and our vegetarian sensibilities all in one fell swoop.

Good thing, too, because oh boy, the okra-in-mustard-sauce was very nearly as yummy as I remembered it from the Bay Leaf. Well, close enough that I was pleased with it, and even Pete, who isn't a fan of mustard as a condiment, enjoyed the taste.

Another version of this recipe can be found at BongMom's Cookbook

Recipe for: Bhindi (okra) in mustard sauce



1/2 kg tender okra, washed, dried, topped and cut into 3" long pieces
2 tbsp mustard seeds (brown or black)
1" piece ginger root
2 dried red chillies
3-4 green chillies (or to taste), slit halfway from the tail end
1 bay leaf
2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp panch phoran or garam masala powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
About 1 cup water, to be used as required

Method:

1. Soak the mustard seeds in water for 15 minutes.



2. Grind it to a smooth paste with the ginger, adding a few tbsp water to help it along. I didn't make mine really smooth, it stayed a bit grainy.



Mix the paste with 1/4 cup water. Add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder and reserve.



3. In a pan, heat the oil and add the bay leaf, red chillies and garam masala powder/panch phoran.



If the bay leaf is green, it will splutter in the hot oil, so watch out.

4. Add 1/4 tsp turmeric powder along with the okra and stir it well. Cover the pan and let the okra cook for 8-10 minutes on medium heat, stirring it every couple of minutes.



5. When the okra is three-fourths cooked (it will feel soft when pressed with a spoon), add the mustard paste, the slit green chillies and the remaining turmeric powder along with salt to taste.

6. Stir the paste into the okra carefully, making sure they're coated thoroughly. Let the okra cook till done. If the paste looks dry, sprinkle a couple of tbsp water on the vegetable and mix it in.



7. Serve hot with rotis or rice as a side dish.

Okra with onions (Bhindi bhaji)

I like okra (bhindi in Hindi, vendakkai in Tamil), as long as the end result of cooking them isnt reminiscent of the nasal debris from someone with a very bad cold. There are various little tricks by which the sliminess of okra can be avoided (Indira, of Mahanandi fame has some tips), but I follow two simple rules which always work for me:

1. ALWAYS wash okra and dry thoroughly before cutting.

2. Dont cover the pan completely while cooking okra - in short, dont steam-cook it.

(Another - and completely foolproof - method to avoid sliminess is to deep-fry the okra. Tastes great but obviously it isnt the healthiest option!)

I also find that the smaller the pieces of okra, the gluey-er (gluier? glueyer? how IS this word spelt?) they get, so I normally cut them into inch-long pieces. I dont add lime juice or curds/yogurt to the okra during the process of cooking, either... I just ensure that the heat is medium-high and that the pan isnt completely covered.



An odd thing about okra, when it's half-cooked, it goes a brighter green than it was before the cooking process! It's done when it goes slightly limp and dark green.

Okra cooked this way, with plenty of browned onions, is delicious with chapaties or rice. I served it this time with lemon rice - Pete's favourite combination.

Recipe for: Okra with onions (Bhindi bhaji)


Ingredients:

3 cups okra, washed, dried and cut into inch-long pieces
2 medium onions, sliced thin
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp red chilli powder (or to taste)
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
1 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped, for garnish
1/2 tsp chaat masala, for garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a wide, shallow pan and add the spice powders, minced garlic, sesame seeds and mustard seeds. Cover and let the mustard seeds pop (about 30 seconds).

2. Now add the sliced onions and let cook till it begins to turn brown.

3. Add the okra and stir well. Let the heat remain on medium-high. Partly cover the pan with the lid.

4. Let the okra cook for 5 minutes, then stir it about with a spatula.



5. Take the lid off and fry the okra, stirring it occasionally, until the pieces shrivel a little and turn dark green. If you are unsure if the okra is cooked, bite (carefully!) into a piece - if it's still crunchy and tastes a bit raw, let it cook a little longer.

6. Serve hot, sprinkled with coriander leaves and the chaat masala, if desired.