Bhindi from another world

Rahul Verma

A nephew who runs a restaurant in the United States introduced me to Creole-Cajun food, an interest that I later honed with the books of James Lee Burke. It helped me answer a riddle that had been plaguing me for long. I had often wondered what “Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and a filé gumbo” referred to in the song “Jambalaya”. I knew ‘Jambalaya’ was a Creole-Cajun rice dish, and crawfish was seafood. But just what was ‘filé gumbo’?

Shrimp and okra gumbo

Ingredients

• Bhindi/okra (chopped) 4 cups
• Tomatoes (chopped) 1 cup
• Onion (chopped) ½ cup
• Celery (chopped) 2 tbsp
• Bell pepper ½ cup
• Garlic (minced) 1 tbsp
• Salt To taste
• Red chillies To taste
• Shrimps 1 kg
• Chicken broth 4 cups
• Water 1 cup
• Oil For cooking

Method

Sauté the chopped okra in oil in a heavy-bottom pan. Brown for 45 minutes or so, adding water to ensure it doesn’t stick to the pot. Add the onions, then the bell pepper, celery and tomatoes. Cook till the veggies are soft and brown. Add garlic and cook some more. Add salt and chillies. Add the cleaned and deveined shrimps, and stir now and then until the shrimps are cooked. Add the broth and the water. Let the broth simmer for 20 minutes on low heat. Serve in bowls with cooked rice.

I learnt that ‘gumbo’ is a stew prepared mostly with okra. ‘Filé’ is a powder made with the dried and ground leaves of the Sassafras tree. The word ‘gumbo’, of West African origin, translates into a veggie we know well — ‘bhindi’. ‘Gumbo’ is also the name of the dish, in which okra or ‘bhindi’ stars, along with seafood and other tasty morsels.

The British called it lady’s fingers, and the Americans know it as okra. For us, it’s ‘bhindi’ in Hindi and other northern Indian languages, possibly derived from the Sanskrit bhinadaka.

‘Bhindi’ is cooked in India in so many ways. We have it ‘kurkuri’, deep fried after dusting it with some ‘besan’ — or stuffed with masalas. We cook it soft with onions, or flavour it with mustard paste. It adds taste and flavour to ‘sambar’ and meat dishes. Some even like to eat it boiled, with salt and mustard oil. ‘Poriyal’ is another popular dish, prepared with ‘urad dal’, ‘channa dal’, and spices.

What interests me is that okra is much loved in other parts of the world, too. Southeast Asia and East Asia have some interesting okra dishes. Myanmar is known for its okra-and-egg curry, while China has different kinds of dishes, including stir-fried okra. Japan’s okra ohitashi is a delicious salad. For this, okra is chopped, put in boiling water and blanched. It is then put in cold water, drained, and transferred to a flat dish. A sauce is prepared by heating mirin, Japanese soup stock, and light soy sauce. This is poured over the okra while still hot. You let it rest, and then serve it as salad.

Food writer Madhur Jaffrey mentions in one of her books a Malaysian dish called ‘Sambal bendi’, prepared with a paste of dried prawns (soaked in water and then drained) shrimps, shallots, red chillies, garlic and salt. She fries some okra, takes them out, and fries the paste. The okras are added back, and then cooked with some water. She adds black pepper and cooks it for five more minutes, and then finishes with lemon juice.

You will find okra in Africa, too. Nigeria has an okra soup prepared with pounded okra, bell pepper, chillies, onions, goat meat, shrimp and spinach. The Ethiopian bamya elicha is simple to cook. In a pot, sauté chopped onions (1.5 cup), chopped tomatoes (2 cups), 2 tsp of chopped garlic and 2 tsp of chopped ginger. Add ½ tsp cardamom powder to it, and then 4 cups of chopped okra. Cook on low heat, uncovered, until done. Mix in chillies and salt and then cook for another five minutes.

Louisiana’s ‘gumbo’ has all kinds of delicious stuff — from chicken, shrimp and prawns to Andouille sausages. And, of course, there is okra to give body and a certain consistency to the dish.

I love ‘bhindi’ cooked in various ways. And I love it for the humour it evokes. Did you hear about the man who went to buy ‘bhindi’, and waited patiently while the vegetable seller kept sprinkling water on the pods to make the veggies look green? Finally, the customer said, respectfully: ‘Once the ‘bhindi’ regains consciousness, will you please give me a kilo of it?’  

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