Hi Everyone, Have you ever had Okra Slush? No? Man you missing out, especially, if like me, you can’t get enough of the slender, green-apple-coloured vegetable called okra (ochroes).
In Barbados Okra Slush is considered one of the old-time recipes and apparently those ‘young’ people like myself who make it are grandmothers’ children. In other words, we were brought up on our grandmother’s cooking so we are aware of these things. While that may be true for many, it is certainly not the whole truth, as long as you really like okra, you will seek it out cooked in any form or fashion.
Okra Slush is the boiling of sliced okra with pieces of salt meat and other seasonings such as chopped onions, garlic, hot pepper and fresh herbs. Once everything is cooked soft, the mixture is beaten or whisked to form a thick, silky, creamy-like soup. You can eat it, just like that as a soup, with dumplings, with boiled ground provisions, cornmeal or breadfruit Cou Cou or even over rice. This week I had mine with sweet potatoes. It sweet fuh days!
The reason why Okra Slush is considered old-time food is because it would have come out a period of time when our ancestors had very little and used whatever ingredients they had to cook and nourish themselves. Growing okras has always been easy and you don’t need a lot of space to do so, therefore, they would have planted a few okra trees in the small patches outside of wherever they lived. The salt meat they got from their weekly rations and it would have been cut into small pieces and be added to the pot to season and flavour the food.
There are many dishes in the Caribbean cooking repertoire that fall into this category of old-time food. Many of these old-time dishes are made with simple, everyday ingredients and are able to satisfy more than our physiological hunger. I like how they slow us down – literally at times – so that we can savour their flavour and contemplate the complexities of how they came into being. Eating. It isn’t always an easy thing to do. Whew, how did things get this heavy?
Getting back to the Okra Slush, if you like Trini Callaloo (eddo leaves, pumpkin and okra cooked with salt meat, crab, seasonings and coconut milk), then you’ll be sure to enjoy Okra Slush.
There’s no strict way to make Okra Slush, for some people it is as simple as boiling the okra, mashing it and then seasoning the okra with lime and salt. You can make it vegetarian/vegan or with meat (which is what I did). Go with your preference. I dressed up my Okra Slush and significantly cut down the cooking time by making it in a pressure cooker. My Okra Slush was done cooking in 15 minutes.
Here’s what I did.
- Cut up and soak the pigtails in boiling water, covered, for 6 hours (overnight if you are planning ahead). I then drained the pigtails and boiled them in fresh water for 5 minutes.
- Next, I finely chopped up some onions, garlic, thyme, celery, marjoram and hot peppers. I had a ripe tomato and cut that up too.
- The tops and tips of the okras were cut and then each okra was cut into 1-inch pieces.
- Some oil heated in the pot of the pressure cooker on medium heat. The seasonings were added, heat lowered and they cooked for 5 minutes until everything was softened.
- I then raised the heat, added the drained pigtails, let it cook with the seasonings for 5 minutes then added some hot water (enough to cover the pigtails). Closed the pressure cooker and once the pot was up to pressure, cooked the pigtails
for 5 minutes.
- The cut okras along with more hot water were added to the pot. I tasted for seasoning (salt), added a little to taste (remember there was salt in the pigtails). Gave everything a stir, covered the pot and brought it up to pressure and cooked it
for 5 minutes.
- At the end of the 5 minutes, I released the pressure, opened the cooker and using my dhal gutney, I swizzled the mixture to make it thick and soupy. Let it boil for a couple minutes and done! It was time to chow down.
A couple of notes
- If you use a regular pot to make the Okra Slush, know that you will need to cook the salt meat until it becomes tender, about 20 minutes. Bring the pot to a boil (at # 5), then lower the heat and let it simmer.
- If you don’t have the time or did not plan ahead to soak the salt meat, then boil it for at least 20 minutes at 2 x 10-minute intervals. Drain and add fresh water after the first 10 minutes of boiling.
Cynthia
Cynthia@tasteslikehome.org
www.tasteslikehome.org
