It’s been a while since I posted a recipe. Recently I was able to go home and learn from that masters how to make some simple meals. Well simple meals for us. I’ve been blessed by having parents that know how to cook good food and it makes me sad when my friends say they had parents that mostly bought restaurant food for the better part of their childhood.

Good home cooking is one of the best ways to be healthy and kind of enjoy the process. Cooking your own food gives you so much more control of what you are putting in your body and you get to learn a new skill that is being lost on so many people in my generation.

Anyway, one aspect of indian food that is second to none is vegetarian food. My favorite indian restaurants are pure vegetarian - Saravanaa Bhavan (worldwide chain) and Brij Mohan (Cincinnati). They’re able to stay full vegetarian because the food is often so good that I don’t really miss the meat - it’s not all just salads and pasta.

My parent’s make some good vegetables and today I’m dishing the recipe on my dad’s okra. I haven’t mastered this recipe and he didn’t give me any specific quantities for the ingredients so these are my best guesses. Feel free the tweak the recipe to your liking.

Let’s go.

Nanaji’s Okra

Ingredients:

• 2-3 tablespoon olive/vegetable oil

• 0.5 red onion

• 2-3 dried red chilis

• 2-3 pinches of mustard seeds

• 2-3 tablespoon green lentils (masoor dhal)

• 0.5 lbs okra, chopped

• 2-3 sprigs of cilatro (optional for garnish)

Directions

1. heat the oil in a large pan

2. once the the oil is hot, fry the onions until softened then add the chilis, mustard seeds, and lentils

3. once that mixture is fragrant add the okra and fry until the okra isn’t sticky

4. add salt to taste

5. garnish with cilantro

That’s it. It’s a very simple dish but very flavorful and goes well with dhal, rice, or any other dish. I paired mine when I made it with some ground beef and it was really good.

Let me know how it goes when you try it!