Okra, Lady's Finger

Okra, Lady's Finger

Okra, also known as lady's finger, is a flowering plant valued for its edible green fruits or vegetables. The plant is cultivated throughout tropical countries for its fruits containing round white seeds, which eaten as vegetables.

Okra is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium; but high in dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, Thiamin, vitamin B6, folate, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, protein, riboflavin, niacin, iron, zinc and copper. Okra is good for maintaining optimum health and weight loss.

Okra is widely used in Mediterranean cooking, Indian cooking and Pakistanis cooking, but not so much on Chinese cooking in the past. However nowadays, Chinese has started to utilize okra in Chinese cooking and cuisines. Okra is commonly used to make stew, gravy base dishes or gumbo in Mediterranean, Indian, Pakistanis and American-Indian cuisines due to its sticky and gluey consistency.

When choosing okra, choose those with bright green color, and firm texture. Avoid those with dark green and long okra as it might be pretty "old" with full of "non chewable' fibers. Always store okra in refrigerator if you don't plan to cook it immediately. Keep the okra dry and cool, it will last for few days.

Wash the okra thoroughly before cutting or slicing the okra. Trim away the top part only if you want to cook the whole okra, else slice the okra into pieces. 

Okra can be steamed, stir fried or deep fried by itself, or with other ingredients. As okra does not have taste by itself, and thus, you will need to dip pure steamed okra with chili sauce or sambal . Okra can be stir fried with other vegetables, meat or poultry, and most of the time, okra is cooked with stronger spice such as chili to perk up the flavor. When cooking okra, it is recommended to simmer it for 5-10 minutes until okra is soft.

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