I bought a bagful of itty-bitty purple okra at the farmer’s market the other day and then just sat them in the middle of the table for décor so we could enjoy their slightly weird look. Eventually I decided to cook them knowing full well that purple okra would become perfectly ordinary green okra once the heat hit. That’s why you’ll get no photo of the finished dish – okra just ain’t real purdy when it has been cooked. But, it is delicious – or it is to me. Here’s what I normally do –
Heat a couple of spoons of olive oil in a large frying pan. Add one chopped onion and a couple of cloves of minced garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Then, I add a basket of cherry tomatoes along with the okra (stems removed and left whole if tiny, sliced, crosswise, if large), a few leaves of basil and a hint of fresh oregano. I don’t cook it very long – just long enough to get the tomatoes to pop and the okra to soften slightly. Too long and you get a kinda slimy mix – still delicious, but not the greatest texture on the palate.
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