Food lovers indeed find many ways and methods to enjoy food by devising exciting recipes or reinventing the existing ones. Why is that being said? Well, because there exists something like Crispy Bhindi, which true to its name is a highly crispy and crunchy snack made by thinly sliced and de-seeded slices of our mundane and humble bhindi or okra. When you know that it’s made by mixing the okra slices with lemon juice and then coating them with instant powdered spices, rice flour and besan then you feel even happier. And then? The last part then consists of immediately deep frying these coated okras to get one of the most unique snacks coming your way.
Okra is a vegetable of the mallow family, the same family from which cacao, cotton, and hibiscus also come. These pods of the vegetable are full of mucilaginous elements resulting in sliminess. This vegetable was named okra first, and then later it got the name lady’s finger perhaps, due to its elegant thin shape that roughly alluded to a woman's fingers. The dietary components of this green vegetable are also diverse and rich with water components being the highest at 90%, 7% carbs, 2% protein, dietary fibres and some minerals and no fat at all.
Some of the popular dishes made in India with okra include bhindi ki bhaji, dry spiced lady’s finger, dry bhindi masala, bhindi bharwa, lady’s finger pachadi, lehsuni bhindi, Rajasthani besan bhindi, bhindi do pyaza, and lady’s finger masala.
Crispy Bhindi
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Servings: 2-3
Ingredients:
• 250 gms okra
• ¼ cup gram flour
• 2 tbsps rice flour
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• 1½ tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1½ tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp carom seeds
• 1 tsp chaat masala
• Salt, as per taste
• ½ lemon’s juice
Method:
• Wash the okra thoroughly and cut them ½ inch from top and bottom, slit from the middle, remove the seeds, and slice the bigger slices vertically into three.
• Cut all the okra like this and keep it aside.
• Then, in a bowl take gram flour and add rice flour to it.
• Add all the powdered spices to the bowl and mix everything well.
• Now, pour lemon juice onto the sliced okra, and toss them well to mix lemon.
• Then add the powdered spices and gram flour mixture to the okra and mix everything well, so that the okra gets well coated with the dry ingredients.
• Make sure to not add any water while coating the okra with spices.
• Then deep fry all the okra pieces in hot oil on a high flame.
• Take out on tissue paper.
Points to remember:
• Make sure not to add water at any stage to the okra, once it’s cut and sliced, as it will become slimy, sticky, unmanageable to cook and not yield the desired results.
• Try this unique recipe as an evening snack and for a change, enjoy the crunch of the lady’s finger in place of sev and pakoras.
