Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 286 kcal | 81 kcal |
| Protein | 16.4 g | 4.7 g |
| Fat | 1.7 g | 0.5 g |
| saturated | 0.3 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 32.9 g | 9.3 g |
| sugars | 13 g | 3.7 g |
| Fibre | 27.7 g | 7.9 g |
| Sodium | 61 mg | 17 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 1.9 kg okra
Instructions
- Choose small pods that snap when you bend the tip. Anything longer than a finger has gone woody and fibrous inside, and drying will not improve it.
- Wash the pods whole and dry them before you cut anything. Okra releases its slime the moment a cut surface meets water, and a wet knife makes that considerably worse.
- Cut the caps off and slice the pods into rounds. Leaving the caps on holds one end of the pod shut and traps moisture behind them.
- Work quickly and get the rounds onto the trays. The cut faces are sticky at first and the moving air dries that film off within the opening hour, where rounds left sitting in a bowl glue themselves into a mass.
- Spread them cut side up in one layer and dry at 57 °C for 20 hours. This is a long run for something cut so small, because the seeds inside each round hold water well after the ring around them has dried.
- They are done when a round shatters under a thumbnail and the seeds rattle loose. A ring that bends, or a seed that squashes, means more time — and the seeds are the honest test here.
- Let them go cold on the tray before they go near a container. Warm okra sticks to itself and you will end up prising the batch apart.
- Sealed in a jar out of the light they hold for a year. Eat them plain, drop them whole into a gumbo where the slime is the entire point, or blitz them to a powder that will thicken any soup you stir it into.
