The Whole Okra: A Seed to Stem Celebration
For many, okra is synonymous with slimy, fried seedy bits of “I’m not eating that.” But writer Chris Smith sees okra as something to embrace and celebrate through history and recipes. Here’s an excerpt from his just-released book.
When properly prepared, okra is delicious. Truly!Red Confidential / Shutterstock
Chef Steven Goff, who describes himself as a meat and pickle man, has honed his skills to support a belief that there should be no waste in the kitchen, a belief informed to some extent by growing up poor and living dwelling-free at the beginning of his career. In our early communications he revealed his love for okra. “Definitely one of my top five vegetables,” he said. “Last year I made okra kimchi.”
Goff is the executive chef and partner of Aux Bar in downtown Asheville, where the menu specializes in regional and seasonal ingredients from the Appalachian South. I was lucky enough to spend a morning in the kitchen with Goff and help in the creation of a fresh batch of okra kimchi.
Inspired by his experiences with the Japanese technique for making nukazuke—which uses rice bran (nuka)—Goff rolled the okra pods over a layer of coarse grain salt. This allowed the salt to penetrate the skin and begin the fermentation process without releasing the slime. As the pile of salted okra grew, it visibly sweated as the salt drew moisture out of the pods. We were rolling red okra in salt, which stained both the salt and our hands a beautiful purple. Pods of all shapes and sizes went into the ferment, stems and all, no waste! “Kimchi is a great kitchen trash can,” said Steve. “I collect all sorts of vegetable scraps and ferment them.”
We crushed and shoved the okra into jars without ceremony, adding layers of chi paste that filled the gaps. (See “Okra Kimchi” on page 100 for the recipe.) Like Sandor Katz, and most serious fermenters I know, Goff embraced a casual bit-of-this, bit-of-that style. He threw in some liquid from another ferment to act as starter culture. In part I’m sure Goff’s casual approach to creating kimchi is a product of years of experience, but it’s also an awesome element of fermenting. You get to go a little wild in the kitchen and see what happens! The Okra Kimchi ferment smelled delicious, but I had to wait a few weeks before returning to get the full taste experience.
It was worth it: a tangy, fruity, little-bit-spicy, still-crunchy okra delight. The red pods held their color, and everything remained glazed in the thick kimchi sauce. I enjoy okra in all shapes and forms, but this is one recipe that seared itself into my mouth memory. Every time I think about it, I begin to drool. I swallow the excess saliva, but if I were a dog, it’d be messy.
One last element of the Okra Kimchi is from an idea inspired by Jamie Swofford, a chef-turned-farmer who focuses on flavor. Swofford explained how he dehydrates his ferments. He creates powdered kimchi and uses it as a seasoning that carries the concentrated flavor of the ferment: “Sprinkle a little on fresh cucumber and you get all the crunchy texture of a fresh cucumber and all the flavor of a pickle!” Knowing how well okra dehydrates, and how tasty dried, ground okra pods are, I had to try making the Okra Kimchi spice.
Chef Steven Goff told me to dehydrate the kimchi at 115F (45C) or less; that way the powder can actually be used as a starter culture for other ferments, giving it one more useful application in the kitchen. As I expected, the powder turned out to be incredible. Such a magnificent blend of flavors could never fail. I’m definitely adding dehydrated ferments to my arsenal of kitchen preservation, and it’s fitting that Okra Kimchi was my maiden voyage!
[post_recipes]
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].by Chris Smith, Modern Farmer
June 13, 2019
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreShare With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
SubmitNecessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and are used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
For Diabetics the slime is the best part of Okra. With Okra as part of a meal the mucalige in the Okra coats the meal as it passes through the gut, slowing digestion and thereby preventing blood sugar spikes.
Very nice article. I loved reading it as Okra is also my top favorite vegetable. Although I have never tried or cooked it this way. Its good to learn about the novel cooking trends.
Moreover, I am also interested to write an article for modern farmer and have emailed them twice- yet waiting for response. Can anybody here kindly guide me through?
How to up root my orka plants for next year.
I was just wondering if dehydrated ferments works! Since the flavor is so much more concentrated, would it be too intense to just eat rehydrated as a side dish? I was thinking of dehydrating a bunch of kimchi and kraut.