New-Old Recipe

Lonnie brought home about 5 pounds of okra and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it all. I took some to Barbara yesterday, and will fry a bunch, and probably cook some with peas. But there's so much of it! I remember Mama making a dish of okra and tomatoes, but of course, I never got her recipe (if she had one!). So I started going through some of my recipes and found one in Central Baptist Church's original cookbook.

First, you cut up the okra and simmer it in salted water with just a little bit of vinegar. I read somewhere that acid helps to cut out the slimy texture of okra.


While that's cooking, chop up some onion, a clove of garlic, and a couple of tomatoes.



Once the okra is tender, drain it and set aside. Brown a couple of slices of bacon till crisp, remove from the pan and crumble them up. Saute the onion and garlic in the bacon fat, then add the tomatoes, just a little brown sugar, and some salt and pepper.


After this mixture has cooked a while, dump the okra into it, add crumbled bacon, and let it cook just a couple more minutes.


I'm not sure it was exactly the way Mama fixes it, but it was really good!