Wouldn’t that be the point?
Bah. You’re from Pennsylvania. What would you know about flavor? You people eat scrapple. 
If you don’t like the flavor of okra, maybe you shouldn’t be in this thread?
I’d say either the lowcuntry-especially-near-Charleston, SC area or Southern Louisiana. That’s where I’ve seen pickled, fried and gumbo okra the most.
Somebody needs to start one of these threads for Boiled Peanuts. Yes, fresh ones’re out of season by now, but there are some frozen and canned varieties that are just ding-danged delicious.
Not all of us. Eech, that stuff isn’t even quality enough to make it in to a hot dog .
This Pennsylvanian was lucky enough to have been born with Louisiana taste buds.
You just had to mention boiled peanuts didn’t ya Askia? You just couldn’t let well enough alone. Oh no! You had to bring up boiled peanuts. Now, I will be forced to stop by my favorite local store that makes fresh boiled peanuts everyday on my way home and buy some. All I got to say to you is lucky for you there’s cold beer in my beerator. 
Hot boiled peanuts and cold beer. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
And I still want me some fried okra too!
You sure you want a recipe for Dirty Rice? Real cajun Dirty Rice??
OK You asked for it… Per my mama:
*You should soak the bitter out of the livers in cold salt water for an hour before removing the gristle and chopping. Or you could substitute 3/4 pound hamburger and 3/4 pound sausage like all good children do.
Once on a radio call-in show about “Your least favorite food,” I heard a woman name “slimy okra” – but she had a method to get the slime off before cooking. I forget the details (this was in the late '70s) – I think it involved soaking the okra in water and milk. Does anybody know more?
I. LOVE. YOUR. MAMA!!! (and you, too ) Thank you both so much.
This looks as close as I’ve seen to what my grandmother used to make. I’m beginning to think I was imagining the eggplant 
.
I’ll be substituting out the liver, I think.
Despite my settling in Connecticut, I was born and raised in Texas, and lived two years in Tennessee.
And I’m here to tell you: I’ll eat just about anything except okra.
It’s one of the few vegetables that contains mucus. 
That’s what the caller at that radio show was complaining about – slimy okra. But she had a procedure for de-sliming it – and for the life of me I can’t remember how it worked. Does anybody know?
I’ll do fried okra, mustard greens , fried tomatoes, cracklin’ cornbread, blackened catfish, boiled peanuts, and fried smoked ham. I draw the line at chit’lins though.
Wow, I got preoccupied there for a day and look at all the replies!
I have tasted okra before. I love spicy okra pickles, and I sometimes steam some whole okra for a scant couple of minutes and serve it with a little soy sauce and lemon drizzled on. The slimey sap doesn’t bother me at all, and the smooth crisp texture is addicting. I like all those little white tender seeds inside.
Oh, yeah, I’ve also made shrimp gumbo a couple of times. It is the only known dish which could induce Mr. Pug to consume okra, celery and green peppers at one go.
Okay, then, fried okra tonight. Since Mr. Pug will detest it, I get it all to myself!
Seconding DeVenaMama’s recipe. Barb hates okra, but that’s precisely how our favorite restaurant prepares it, and they do a wonderful job – none of the “slimy” and such complaints, and it is delicious!
I may be in Pennsylvania, but I’m from Albuquerque. And with all the rest of my extended family (that I’ve actually seen more than once in my life) being in Georgia and South Carolina, I think I’m perfectly qualified to talk about okra and most other Southern cooking.
Saying I’m from Pennsylvania. Yeesh. What are you going to do next, say I’m from Texas?
I don’t know, maybe I’d like it better now that I’m an adult. But I know that one of the nastiest things I ever smelled was my grandmother cooking okra with vinegar being involved somewhere. So I highly suggest not using vinegar.
Vinegar is one of the suggestions Google turns up for reducing the slime. Along with not overcooking it, or cooking it for a longer period, or just learning to like the slime. And yes, BrainGlutton, soaking the sliced okra in milk and then draining appears to be another option.
DeVena, yo mama is all that! My mama-in-law was born in PA, but moved to northern Florida as a teenager, where she learned to cook all the good southern stuff. She agrees with your Mama on both fried okra and dirty rice.
Askia, how does someone from Ohio know so much about lowcountry-near-CharlestonSC cooking? (Goose Creek is in the Lowcountry.) Shrimp & grits, boiled peanuts, etc. - YUM!
I ain’t gonna start a thread, but I know how to boil peanuts. Buy 3 pounds of green peanuts at Piggly Wiggly. Put 'em in a big pot. Add plenty of water and lots of salt - so much salt that you think it might be TOO much. (Piggly Wiggly always stacks salt around their green peanuts display, so’s we don’t forget.) Bring to a boil, then boil slowly for 3 hours. Drain and rinse. Good hot or chilled. Better than the roadside stand variety, which soak in the hot pot of water for too long.
I’ve heard that you can pressure cook green peanuts for about 20 minutes, but I’ve never tried this.
A friend was in NJ, and tried to tell some natives about boiled peanuts. Friend’s accent was thick. When he said “boiled peanuts” a native said “BALD PENIS??”
A properly boiled peanut is a very young peanut. If you opened the shell, you would not see your basic Planters™ goober all filled out and waiting to be roasted and salted and ensconced in a salted nuts can. It would instead be a skinnier item, surrounded by the *somewhat squishy embryonic peanut-growth-medium tissues that are in the hull.
- OK, I’ve only seen the suckers boiled up. But when you open the hulls cooked, the young peanut flesh is surrounded by soft squishy stuff. And they are considerably smaller and skinnier than full-grown peanuts, although you can boil the older ones too. They just aren’t quite as good.
Never use vinegar with okra that is going to be fried. (And why would anyone cook okra any other way? It’s a waste of good okra not to fry it!)
Use DeVena’s mama’s method.
Oh yeah, and listen to swampbear about cooking it in small batches. If you’ve got a big batch, break it into smaller batches for cooking. It takes some care and attention to do this, but the results are worth it.
Eat it any way you please. Just be sure to pronounce it “okry”. 