Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation LONG RANGE COOK OFF

Bullwnkl:
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<br>I was going to let Mr. Boggy reply to your question, but he is holding up production here!! Actually, I'll bet he is up to his elbows with calving. Anyway, until the expert returns I'll give it a go. Okra, in gumbo recipes, is used as a thickening agent. My research has shown that real gumbo uses okra. Other recipes use file' powder. Now, you have to realize this information comes from a midwest dirt boy. I've never been close to cajun country!
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<br>rutnut

Winky, never heard of Okra. Don't you know it is the state vegetable of Okrahoma!
<br>Rutnut has it right it is vegetable thickning for the gumbo. You can use file gumbo which isn't anything but powdered sasafrass leaves to sprinkle on gumbo just before you eat it. Personally I don't care for it.
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<br>You can fry okra or boil it. Not bad boiled with a little butter and salt and pepper. Looks like snot but tastes good.
<br>Or here is a good way to fix okra
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<br>2 pounds fresh okra
<br>1 cup chopped onions
<br>1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
<br>1 large tomato cut up
<br>3/4 cup oil
<br>salt and pepper to taste
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<br>Cut up okra in thin slices. Add all ingredients together in a large skillet. Cook until okra is soft stirring often to prevent sticking. Usually takes about an hour.
<br>BCR

Now Boggy if I gotta cook some veggi I never seen before for an hour so it will look like snot before I eat it I believe I will stick with Lutefisk, I can buy it ready to cook, warm it up so it looks like snot and smells like dog puke and eat it in just a little while, not an hour of standing over a hot stove stiring some thing I may not carefor. At least I already know I don't like lutefisk.
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<br>Bullwnkl.

Winky it only looks that way when you just plain boil it. It doesn't when you use the recipe that I gave above. If you want you can add a pinch of basil and a dash of garlic salt to the recipe.
<br>Some vegetables take getting used to before you can stomach them. I can't abide parsnips. You ever eat salsafy?
<br>BCR

gumbo without okra is unamerican. fried okra is as good as it gets. I prefer to shake the okra in cornmeal after salt and peppering it. good stuf. I like boiled okra also but most people don't. tom

Bog Man I am not sure I can even properly pronounce "Salsafy" no less than know what it is. Now there are a whole bunch of Swedeish foods I have tried but don't have a clue of what they are. And that Korean stuff, you know the rotten cabbage in a jar...Kimchee... thats not too bad if you don't get the store bought stuff.
<br>Now me I wait all year to get a chance to gather mushrooms, I pick just a few different types that I know for sure...I never experiment with these guys. Mushrooms have a nasty habit of making one very sick if you pick the wrong one and eat it, some even can make you real dead. Here it is almost aspargrass picking time in eastern WA. that is always a fun trip the stuff grows wild along the road sides in places. I like it fried and I like it pickled. And for real exotic stuff we have bracken fern shoots, they taste kinda like green beans.
<br>The bay has been free of silt for a couple weeks and the little oysters would be mighty tasty tomorrow, shucked on the beach and eat em raw. Now thats a treat.
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<br>Bullwnkl.

Winky I never could get past the smell of Kimchee. Sort of like trying to eat a gym sock. Bluffed at it but never tried it. Tried Noc Mam the rotten fish sauce, must be an acquired taste .
<br>I never have tried grazing on wild fungi. Nobody around to teach me what is what. I know there are books with pictures but I might look at them cross eyed or something and chow down on the wrong one. I've had a mess of Poke Salad already this spring. Good if you know how to fix it make you sick as a dog if you don't. Besides just down the road from me is a Monteray Mushroom plant and they grow them by the truck load. I know that some of the wild ones would be better than commercial but don't know which.
<br>Salsafy is an antique root crop people used to grow. My grandma always had some in her garden. It looks sort of like a Daikon radish but not as big. It was also called vegitable oyster. You peeled it like a potato and fried it like you can egg plant. Had about the same texture and a fairly strong "fishy" taste. Never seen it in a produce market.
<br>Didn't know asparagras grew wild! Guess most everything did one time or the other. I like to take some fresh and hit it with a dash of season salt, wrap four or five shoots in bacon and grill it.
<br>I wish I could join you for some oysters. Ours are already starting to get watery.
<br>You got a good red beans and rice recipe?
<br>BCR