- Basic Skills Challenge
- Season 1
- Episode 72
50 People Try To Slice Okra
Released on 02/24/2020
What happens before a vegetable is a vegetable?
A caterpillar becomes a butterfly,
and then you get those in between stages.
This looks like that.
This looks like eucalyptus or something.
Like a bamboo stick.
Oh, or maybe it's like a baby cucumbers.
It looks like nuclear green beans.
This is okra.
I hate okra.
This is what okra looks like
before it's cut up and put in the jar.
What part do I even want?
Is there anything in it?
Do I have to?
Oh wow, look at that.
I'm gonna use a spoon and I'm gonna scrape the seeds.
Not sure if you eat the seeds.
I'm trying to decide if I'm going to cut them like dimes,
or the long way.
I have no idea what color's on the inside,
I'm hoping purple.
Once you cut into it, it's like lotion.
It's super sticky.
Where's the hammer?
[laughing] I've abandoned all use of any tools now,
like our ancestors once did.
Just massage your vegetables until they become edible.
We're gonna go down and just do,
oh that's, is that a shishito pepper?
[Cameraman] It's okra.
It's really slimy.
Hm, that's really good, actually.
It's hairy which makes me uncomfortable.
It looks like a little honeycomb.
This is my sliced okra.
I know it's okra.
They look like alien fingers.
I feel like the Grinch.
We are going to slice some okra.
Okri, if you will.
I'm gonna quote my friend, Doug,
Does anybody have any recipes for snot?
I hate it, it's a slug vegetable.
I heard that if you put okra in water
and soak it overnight,
and then drink it in the morning,
it's good for your digestion.
One would presume these are already washed.
I'm gonna start by cutting the stem off.
A good sharp knife is the best tool you can have.
You do not particularly want to cut it this way
because it's even uglier and crappier that way.
Kinda looks like an alien pod, a little weird.
I don't think okra really has a taste.
I think it's more of a texture.
Once you cook it, it becomes very, very slimy.
Throw this in your gumbo.
Is it gummo?
Smells like chlorophyll.
It smells surprisingly good.
Do I like okra like secretly?
Am I talking all this shit about okra,
and I think it's delicious?
This is some good stuff, okay?
This is good.
There's like oil coming out of it.
What a wild veggie.
♪ Dum de dum dum ♪
♪ Dum de dum dum dum ♪
This is my okra.
Maybe it's used for like the sticky parts of band aids?
We are going to slice some okra today.
We're gonna talk a little bit about okra as well.
First off, I have two knives for the job.
I have a chef's knife and a paring knife.
I use a different knife depending on the direction,
or the way that I'm gonna cut the okra.
So let's start with the chef's knife.
I'm gonna cut this okra into like a disk shape,
or a coin shape.
I'm gonna do that by placing the tip of the knife
on the board, and I'm gonna use a rocking motion
sliding back and forth.
I actually am going to be able to extract
the most of that kind of goopiness
out of the inside of the okra.
Most of that is contained in the seeds,
and the seed pod area.
That thick, goopy stuff on the inside
is primarily made out of starch.
And that starch is made of a soluble fiber.
That soluble fiber will melt into
the dish that you're cooking,
and it'll act like a thickener.
It's the same idea as if you added some flour
when you're making macaroni and cheese
in order to thicken up the sauce.
If I don't want to extract all of that mucilage
from the inside of the okra,
and I want to keep it kind of self contained,
so that it's not just creating a sliminess
in the rest of the dish,
the better method here is to slice it lengthwise.
I'm gonna use a paring knife to do this.
Working from top to bottom,
I'm gonna slice the okra in this direction.
When you're shopping for okra,
what you want to look for, is an okra
that's two to three inches long.
As it starts to get bigger,
it also starts to get really tough,
and woody, and fibrous, and can be kind of difficult to eat.
Here on my right we have the disks of okra.
These are really, really great
for making soups, stews, gumbos,
those types of dishes.
And then in my left hand,
I have the okra that's sliced lengthwise.
Really good for making pickled okra,
fried okra, and sauteed okra.
Dishes where we're not necessarily
trying to thicken a liquid.
And that's how we slice okra.
Here's my sliced okra.
Check that out, oh.
Oh it has a little bit of hair.
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