A Simple and Healthy Sephardic Okra Dish: Bamia
April 12, 2018
I’m still on my post-Pesach detox, and today I have a great, healthy, simple dish—bamia—featuring a vegetable that doesn’t get enough love: okra!
I know a lot of people hate on okra for its sometimes slimy texture (officially, “mucilaginous,” which even sounds disgusting). I didn’t grow up eating it (though my father, who grew up in the South, is squarely on Team Okra); I’m pretty sure my first encounter came in the form of bhindi masala at an Indian restaurant when I was in high school. I was instantly smitten (and to this day bhindi masala is one of my favorite Indian dishes), but nevertheless I was scared off from cooking the stuff until years later.
My first time cooking with okra, in which I attempted to recreate my beloved bhindi at home, was rather unpleasant—not because of the sliminess, but because, not knowing anything about picking okra, I ended up with some overly large and tough pods of the fresh stuff, with an unpleasant coating of prickly fuzz that I spent hours trying to remove. The results were certainly tasty, but the difficult prep almost put me off okra for life.
Then I became acquainted with the joys of frozen okra. Picked at peak freshness, before it gets all tough and prickly, and trimmed and chopped for maximum convenience, this stuff is one of my favorite kitchen hacks (up there with frozen artichoke hearts).
I still love a good bhindi masala, but now that I’ve gotten comfortable with okra my horizons have expanded. Bamia, a simple Sephardic dish consisting of okra in a tomato sauce, has become another favorite. If you use frozen okra—and honestly, if it’s readily available to you, why would you not?—the recipe comes together in a snap.
The bamia recipe below is slightly adapted from Claudia Roden’s in The Book of Jewish Food; Roden recommends serving the bamia hot with rice or cold as a side or starter.
Okra is native to Ethiopia, which is probably not much of a surprise given its predominance in African and African-infused cuisines (i.e., American Southern). The Ladino name for okra, bamia, and the Arabic name, bamiya, are both derived from the Bantu kingombo (which is also the likely root of the word “gumbo”).
What might be more of a surprise is that, as a member of the mallow family, it counts such unlikely plants as cotton, cacao, and durian among its relatives.
Introduced to Spain by the Moors in the Middle Ages, okra quickly gained popularity among Sephardim, and as they dispersed following the expulsion they took their taste for this vegetable with them.
In Sephardic cuisine, okra is often paired with tomatoes—partly because their acidity lessens the vegetable’s notorious mucilaginous quality (blanching in hot water can also have a similar effect).
Bamia, the okra tomato stew I’m blogging today, was common as both an everyday and Shabbat dish in Turkey and the Balkans, often accompanied by rice or flatbread. It was also sometimes eaten as part of the Yom Kippur break fast meal. Syrians eat okra with tamarind on Rosh Hashanah and other festive occasions, and okra is also commonly pickled or dried to preserve it for the winter in Middle Eastern cuisines.
Bamia (Okra in Tomato Sauce)
1 lb okra, fresh or frozen and chopped
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic
1 lb tomatoes, either canned or chopped fresh
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon, or 2 teaspoons of dried ground limes
¼ cup chopped cilantro, optional
If using fresh okra, wash thoroughly, trim the ends, and chop.
Sauté the onion in the oil over medium-low heat until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking until aromatic, about 1 minute. Add the okra and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and simmer uncovered for 25-30 minutes, or until the okra is tender. Stir in the cilantro, if using, and cook for a minute more.
Sources: The Book of Jewish Food (Claudia Roden, 1996); Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010)