Okra woes/how to salvage failed meal prep

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bleepboop8422
bleepboop8422 Posts: 21 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I like to prepare a big batch of food on Sunday to bring for lunch every day. This week I made curry. I decided to add okra to this curry. However, I didn’t prepare it correctly so the curry came out very slimy. Any tips on how to reduce sliminess? All I could find on google were tips on how to prepare the okra before cooking it, but at this point it’s too late for that.

Alternatively, any tips on how to meal prep a new batch of food on short notice or salvage ruined food for the week? The flavor and quality of the other stuff in the curry (chicken and veggies) is great, but the slimy texture makes the dish pretty unappetizing.

Replies

  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,874 Member
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    Ew :tired_face:

    1. Eat omelettes/salad/insert easy food of your choice all week
    2. Fry the okra next time (only way it's worth eating :wink: )

    I'm sorry your meal prep efforts got slimed. Best I can think of to save it is drain and rinse the remaining chicken and veggies and throw some more curry sauce on it.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,912 Member
    edited October 2018
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    Hmm....

    Colander diving to remove okra, wash, and re sauce?

    Or

    Pulverize and turn into thick soup... and for some reason adding potato comes to mind!
  • k8eekins
    k8eekins Posts: 2,264 Member
    edited October 2018
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    bleepboop8422 wrote: »
    I like to prepare a big batch of food on Sunday to bring for lunch every day. This week I made curry. I decided to add okra to this curry. However, I didn’t prepare it correctly so the curry came out very slimy. Any tips on how to reduce sliminess? All I could find on google were tips on how to prepare the okra before cooking it, but at this point it’s too late for that.

    The flavor and quality of the other stuff in the curry (chicken and veggies) is great, but the slimy texture makes the dish pretty unappetizing.

    Shared your okra woes with my sister out of curiosity if your dish is at all salvageable and according to her, for the next time, soak in a vinegar bath before adding it to your dish and NEVER overcook it.

    To possibly remedy your dish, she's recommended 5 choices:
    • Add a tablespoon of vinegar (apple cider) to your pot of curry, stir it around on low heat. Hopefully, the vinegar will dispel the coagulant slime.
    • Add a tablespoon of psyllium husk, stir it around and keep adding an 1/8th of a tsp until the desired consistency is achieved
    • Mop it up with bread
    • wash the okra out and start over, preserving key ingredients
    • OR pop it into a slow cooker and turn it into a dry curry ... Low and slow for 4 hours
  • thisPGHlife
    thisPGHlife Posts: 440 Member
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    I feel like any time I do an Ikea and tomato "stew" the sliminess isn't noticeable. I don't know if the texture of the tomatoes makes it seem more like tomato texture than actual sliminess or what. Maybe try adding some/more tomato? I usually used canned, diced for those dishes.

    As far as a new batch of food, crock pot. You can throw pretty much anything in a Crock-Pot in the morning and come home to a fully cooked dinner. You can do a big batch, have some for dinner, and portion it the rest for the week. Or set it up in the evening, cold while you sleep, and your wake up to a batch of food you can probably. I've done that a few times.
  • bleepboop8422
    bleepboop8422 Posts: 21 Member
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    pinuplove wrote: »
    Ew :tired_face:

    1. Eat omelettes/salad/insert easy food of your choice all week
    2. Fry the okra next time (only way it's worth eating :wink: )

    I'm sorry your meal prep efforts got slimed. Best I can think of to save it is drain and rinse the remaining chicken and veggies and throw some more curry sauce on it.

    That’s good advice! I think I’ll try to rinse the non tainted ingredients off but if that doesn’t work omelettes it is!

    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Hmm....

    Colander diving to remove okra, wash, and re sauce?

    Or

    Pulverize and turn into thick soup... and for some reason adding potato comes to mind!

    The soup idea intrigues me but I only have a little nutribullet. Potato sounds like it could even out the texture.

  • bleepboop8422
    bleepboop8422 Posts: 21 Member
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    k8eekins wrote: »

    Shared your okra woes with my sister out of curiosity if your dish is at all salvageable and according to her, for the next time, soak in a vinegar bath before adding it to your dish and NEVER overcook it.

    Pass my gratitude on to your sister! I really should invest in a slow cooker.
  • bleepboop8422
    bleepboop8422 Posts: 21 Member
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    skram01 wrote: »
    I feel like any time I do an Ikea and tomato "stew" the sliminess isn't noticeable. I don't know if the texture of the tomatoes makes it seem more like tomato texture than actual sliminess or what. Maybe try adding some/more tomato? I usually used canned, diced for those dishes.

    Interesting! I wonder if the acidity from the tomato cuts through the slime like vinegar would

  • bleepboop8422
    bleepboop8422 Posts: 21 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    I don't have any advice OP, but I feel your pain!

    I am a northerner who had never seen okra before in my life, but had heard of it from cooking shows about southern cooking. Found a bag of frozen okra at the supermarket and decided to try it. Whenever I try a new frozen veggie, I just dump a serving into a bowl and microwave it, then determine from there what I want to try with the rest of it. So I did that with the okra, and ended up with a bowl of slime. I admit I chickened out and trashed the rest of the bag! :lol: Luckily it was store brand and probably $0.99.

    It didn't make it into my normal rotation.

    I’ll have to start doing more tests like that before I start dumping random veggies into my food haha
  • madaboutblu
    madaboutblu Posts: 24 Member
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    The acid in tomato cuts through the sliminess
  • rsclause
    rsclause Posts: 3,103 Member
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    I used to fry Okra but it is much better (and without bread crumbs) cutting it in half length wise and baking it with some olive oil on it. This would get rid of the slim.

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