- All right, guys, today on "Picky Eaters",
we're gonna be turning this into this.
Stick around.
(upbeat music)
Hey everybody, and welcome
to a new episode of "Picky Eaters".
Today, we have one of my favorite
and most of everybody else's least favorite vegetable,
that's right, today we're doing okra.
This is an ingredient
that I kinda sympathize with people about.
I get it.
People don't like the sliminess,
but it doesn't bother me at all.
Today I've got a technique to kinda alleviate
that slimy texture and to really give our guest
a concentrated flavor of okra,
so let's see if it works.
♪ Hello you ♪
Tierra, come on out.
- [Tierra] Hello.
- How are you?
- I'm doing great, thank you, how are you?
- I can't complain, I got a bowl full of okra
in front of me.
I have an amazing guest.
- Aw, that's so sweet.
- So I'm doing pretty good.
So can you tell me about your, is it hatred, of okra?
- Hatred's a strong word.
- It is.
- And I am gonna go with it, yeah.
I really can't stand okra.
Most of all it's like the sliminess,
I just can't deal with that.
- I don't think I can make you a lover of okra,
but I can at the very least maybe make you
an appreciator of okra.
Are you game?
- I'm definitely down, I can't wait to see you cook up,
let's do it.
- Okay, let's do it.
- Cook up, cook up.
- Cook, cook up.
This is step one of this recipe, and like many of mine,
I wanna make this as simple as possible,
so we're just gonna start off with some okra
that we've rinsed and patted dry.
We have some lemon zest, some kosher salt,
some herbes de provence, granulated garlic,
we have some canola oil, and some red pepper flakes.
So we're gonna start this recipe off
by just lobbing off our stems.
We're just gonna cut these into small rounds.
As you start to cut through these,
you start to notice a little bit of the sliminess,
but it's not as intense as it is when you apply heat.
So you're probably gonna need to clean your cutting board
with some soap and water.
For the most part, you should be okay right now.
My primary goal with this dish is to alleviate
as much of the sliminess as possible,
so after we're done with this step,
we're just going to dehydrate the okra completely.
We're gonna take all the sliminess, all the moisture,
we're just gonna alleviate that altogether.
So we've got about two cups
of okra cut into small rounds here.
I originally got the idea for this recipe
from one of my favorite steakhouses in Atlanta
called Dantana's.
They serve what's called blistered okra
and although I have no idea
what's in it, I'm kinda, you know, got my own idea
based on the notes, so we're gonna start off
with some canola oil and then there's some definitive
tanginess in this dish, so I've included some lemon zest.
There's some definitive herbaceousness,
so we have our herbes de provence.
We're just gonna sprinkle a little bit,
maybe no more than two tablespoons.
And then of course, to enhance that flavor,
we have some kosher salt and then there's a little bit
of heat in there, so I'm gonna add about a half a teaspoon
of red pepper flakes.
And then of course, there's notes of garlic in there.
So we're gonna add our granulated garlic,
and then we're just gonna give this a good toss.
And this already smells good, all these flavors
are marrying together.
Smells like I'm at Dantana's right now.
Okay, now our next step.
Next step, again, really simple,
we're just gonna take these okra rounds
that we've seasoned up,
and we're gonna put them on a sheet tray
lined with some parchment paper,
and we wanna just place them in one even layer.
Just gonna spread these out.
We wanna leave as much space as possible,
but if these are touching a little bit,
don't worry about it, they'll be fine,
we're just dehydrating them.
I have a dehydrator at home that I usually use
for this type of application,
but we're gonna go old school today.
We're just gonna pop these in the oven
at the lowest setting for anywhere from six to 24 hours,
it just depends on the strength of your oven,
like I'm always talking about.
You want these to be brittle and almost chip-like
by the time they're done,
so let's pop 'em in the oven.
And we're back.
It is actually six hours later,
or you can believe that if you want to.
We have our dehydrated okra here.
As you can see, it's shrank down to more than half
of its original size.
You hear how dry this is?
There's no slime, there's no moisture,
there's no H two O anywhere to be found in here.
So we're gonna take our dehydrated okra
and we're gonna add it to our blender here,
so I'm just gonna take our parchment paper,
just carefully slide it all in there.
I'm gonna take our top, along with the towel to cover it,
and we're just gonna blend.
(blender whirs)
And that is literally it.
We have some amazing okra salt seasoning here
that we've made, it's nice and blended.
It's the texture of the perfect spice mix.
So let's go ahead and add that to our bowl here.
This is amazing, it's fragrant, just gonna.
This is perfect, so let's just move on to our next step,
which is the popcorn.
Okay, so, this process is one of my favorite things to do.
It makes me feel so connected to one of my grandmothers,
one of the women that raised me, Judy Washington.
We used to make homemade popcorn with her all the time.
This is also very simple and it makes me feel connected
to her, so let's do this process.
We're gonna start off with about three to four tablespoons
of vegetable oil, with your flame over high medium,
and then we're just gonna start off with a few kernels
of popcorn, place it in there,
and cover it, and then we're gonna turn this on
and as soon as these start popping,
we're gonna add the rest of the kernels
and cook the rest of the popcorn.
(graphic pops)
All-righty, so our tester kernels
have started popping, so we're just gonna add
the rest of our kernels now.
(kernels clatter)
Then re-cover.
So you guys know I love using the word childish,
but this is one of the times where I feel most childish.
I love just peeking over in the pot
and just watching the kernels, you know,
pop and do their thing, so I'm gonna do that while we wait.
(bright music)
(kernels pop)
There we go, yes.
(kernels pop)
Now we see we got some poppage now,
so we want to just shake our pot or our pan
around a little bit on the burner,
just to get those kernels evenly cooked.
So it prevents the ones that have already popped
from burning, and it sends the kernels
to the bottom of the pan so those can start popping too.
Just a little shake, little.
A little Harlem shake.
Okay, so once the popping subsides,
we want to turn off our flame
and we've got some fresh homemade popcorn here,
so I'm just gonna transfer this to our mixing bowl.
All-righty so, my favorite part, the assembly.
So we have our freshly hot popped popcorn.
We're gonna add some melted, unsalted butter
to our popcorn, and then we're just gonna add
that okra seasoning that we made.
Ah, it smells amazing.
Your local movie theater could never.
And just gonna give this a little toss.
Make sure we're evenly incorporated here.
Oh my god.
This is so good.
I cannot wait for Tierra to taste this.
Got a nice gold bowl here.
Just gonna add,
a scoop at a time.
Another little, we'll see.
It's perfect, we lost a couple, but it's perfect,
and then we're just gonna finish it with just a little
more okra seasoning.
And the next time you see me,
Tierra will be tasting our zesty okra popcorn.
(upbeat music)
And now, guys, for the moment of truth.
Tierra, come on back out.
- [Tierra] Is it popcorn?
- Yes.
So I've turned this, into this.
I chopped, seasoned, and dehydrated the okra,
and then made a seasoning and here we have
our zesty okra popcorn.
So I want you to take a big old handful
and just go ham on it and be honest with me
and tell me what you think about it.
- Okay.
(bright music)
- Oh, so dainty.
(edgy music)
(Tierra chews)
- Doesn't even taste like okra.
- Right, right?
- It really doesn't.
It's like salty, but not too salty,
and then it just like has I think you said
it was garlic in it?
- Mmm hmm.
- I can taste the garlic in it.
- Yeah.
- And garlic's like one of my favorite palates, so.
- We got a winner, folks.
- This is the only way I'll eat okra,
like if I don't have to deal with the gooey,
I think I can work with this,
and I can take this bowl home with me.
- Thank you, I count that as a big old W.
All righty guys, it looks like we have a winner today.
To all the naysayers in the comments,
you can go debate your mother.
For the rest of us, we'll just enjoy
our zesty okra popcorn,
and we'll see you next time on "Picky Eaters", peace.
- It's so good.
(light music)