This is a recipe I remember eating a lot of during my first real relationship. My ex-girlfriend’s mother cooked this all the time and with a bit of effort I managed to replicate her recipe. I don’t eat a lot of vegetables but I like certain ones and this one is a hit. 🙂
Ladyfingers or okra is quite easy to work with – my parents usually just dunk it in hot water for a couple of minutes and eat it just like that. It’s very healthy.
However, this is a better tasting version that I picked up from an ex-girlfriend’s mom (who’s a great cook). It requires:
Lady’s fingers (okra)
Surimi (crab sticks)
Tomato sauce
Dark soy sauce
Brown sugar
What makes this slightly different is all in the sauce. This sauce is very delicious when used with lady’s fingers. You’ll want to mix tomato sauce and dark soy sauce in a 1:1 ratio. Pour another measure of brown sugar (2:1 to the existing sauce mix) on top to sweeten the entire thing.
Surimi is meant to be the “treasure” beneath the bed of ladyfingers. Put it into boiling water and take it out after a few seconds. Surimi (crab sticks) cooks really fast so get ready to fish it out when it floats to the top (to me this means that it’s cooked, I could be mistaken). 😉
Put the lady fingers into the boiling pot after that and wait for about 2 minutes. A spatula would be useful in speed cooking – just press the okra down into the hot water. Ladyfingers also doesn’t take long to cook – you want this to be slightly firm and crunchy on the outside.
While the ladyfingers are cooking, put a bit of hot water into the sauce mixture to melt the brown sugar. I just used the closest available one – straight from the pot. You just need a TINY (a bit of an oxymoron to use caps to emphasize moderation) amount so just sprinkle a little from the spatula you use for the lady fingers.
Take the lady fingers out, chop off the head, and slice it vertically using a very sharp knife – two slices down each one is optimal but if you come across a particularly small finger, just once slice would do. This releases the Gooey Stuff (TM) that’s so good about okra.
Just arrange the sliced lady fingers on top of the bed of surimi and pour the sauce over it. It’s now ready to eat! 😀
This dish cools really fast so it’s best if you cook it last.
Serve immediately and savor the texture and tastes of the messy goo mixed with sauce and surimi and the occasional crunch of lady’s fingers. 🙂
KY is cooking. You are cooking. Cindy is cooking. Everyone is cooking now! Cooking seems to be the new black!
Heh! Kim too! I think it’s a natural progression. I started doing the first “current format” cooking post around 2005 or so. I think this is one of the earlier posts:
http://sixthseal.com/2006/09/project-best-way-to-a-womans-heart-macaroni-and-cheese-with-bacon-and-caviar/
I can remember cooking with one of my ex-girlfriends before this but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the post so I can’t search for it. Haha! That was 2005 and I did a lot of cooking in 2006 (also coincidentally with another ex-girlfriend from the same hospital – this was the ICU nurse).
I think we all are about the same age and we’re all in relationships so it makes sense to cook when you’re living together especially if you both enjoy doing it. You should see Kim’s cooking, it always looks great! 🙂
Oh! I was just replying another comment in the next post when I remembered a baking project that I did. It was a Devil’s food cake so that was easy to search. As far as I know the earliest “current format” cooking post was in May 2004.
http://sixthseal.com/2004/05/the-devils-kiss/
It could be earlier, I just can’t be bothered to search. 😀
I liked how this post was written. *self praise :p
Good ol’ days, sure brings back memories…
yeah suddenly everyone is cooking except me! This dish looks nice and simple. Hey isn’t that a tad too much sugar?
That’s coz you’re always eating out Eiling! 😉
It’s fun to cook! I remember cooking lobster with you when you brought over that two bottles of wine. 😀
Nah, it’s just the right amount, brown sugar isn’t as sweet as regular processed sugar.
Hey, let’s cook again someday! Come on over and we can think of something to cook! That lobster pasta cookout with wine was fun! 🙂
let’s do something extraordinary!
Sounds like fun! 😀
I would love to experiment with exotic ingredients in the kitchen again. Let’s do it Eiling! 🙂
Does it taste like chee cheong fun sauce? It looks like it. I love that sweet stuff.
Yeah it does actually! Heh! It’s a little like chee cheong fun sauce but it’s sweeter coz of the amount of sugar I put in. You can put in less sugar for a sauce that’s more like chee cheong fun and add sesame oil. 🙂
I love it too – lady finger’s and brinjals are the two vegetables that I really like off the top of my mind.
Cheers bro! 🙂
Same, love brinjal and lady’s fingers… I usually sapu these two alot when I eat yong tau fu.
Yup, it’s really good stuff eh bro? I love the texture of brinjals, it tastes really good – it’s has a rich aftertaste. I’m not a big fan of yong tau fu for some reason though but I like the veggies by itself. 🙂
is there like a moving trend where everyone’s cooking for their blog posts now???
Heh! I don’t think so bro. I suspect it’s coz we’re all about the same age and we’re the same wave of bloggers so the blog evolves with us. A lot of us are in serious relationships now, so that means a lot of cooking at home. It’s something I enjoy and I think the others do as well. 🙂
I was just talking about this the other day – we love cooking, just not the cleaning up part. Haha!
I mean we still eat out and all but it’s fun to cook! I’ve always loved cooking – did a lot of cooking posts 6 years ago – did more (but not in the current format) since 2003 – for me, it’s just that I have MORE TIME to cook now and it’s good since both me and the gf enjoys it.
I just don’t like washing up. 😡
haha true that…..well i suppose part of cooking comes together with washing up but i dont like that part as well. It still part of being a discipline cook in the kitchen i suppose.
cooking with company its always fun init?
Yup, it is! It’s always better to cook together than to cook alone.
I’ll like to say that we take turns washing up but more often than not it’s my kind gf that does the washing up. 😡
This looks very delicious! But wouldn’t it be better to use natural fish or shrimps instead of surimi sticks? I’m afraid is too much chemicals and prevervatives in sirimi sticks (at least in the ones I see at the supermarkets).
Hello Sabrina! 🙂
Yup, I guess it would be healthier to use real fish or shrimps (think the latter would taste better in this recipe) instead of surimi.
Well, you’re right, surimi does have a lot of preservatives and artificial flavoring. I love it though – it’s very tasty. Heh! I eat a lot of unhealthy stuff. 😀
I just made it this way to stay faithful to my ex-gf’s mom’s cooking – this was how she made it.
…but yeah, substituting shrimps would be a good (and tasty) idea. I shall try it next time.
Thanks Sabrina! 🙂
waww…..its really looks yummy! (tengah lapar ni!)
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of vegetables and I’m starting to get hungry looking at this too. Heh!
I still have some okra in the fridge, this one is real easy to cook up, especially with the surimi.
Unfortunately, I have to ration the surimi a bit. I love the stuff, and we just went grocery shopping just now – forgot to get surimi. 🙁
Your sauce recipe usually people eat with rojak..inside got cucumber, pineapple, taufu and another one..i forgot already.. it taste very nice.I haven’t taste it with surimi and lady’s finger yet.. I would love to try.
Heh! Yeah, a rojak based sauce is somewhat similar but different in a lot of ways – it’s thicker, sweeter (even compared to this sauce) and it doesn’t have tomato sauce inside. The rojak I like (some Indian and Malay ones) use a peanut based sauce too – exquisite! 🙂
This one is very easy to make, and it’s quick too. Try it out and tell me how it goes. I like how the surimi goes with the lady’s fingers too – ate quite a bit of this during my first real relationship and I think I finally got the recipe down pat. 🙂
I love them boiled…and eaten with sambal belacan or sambal haybee (dried prawns). Will try your sauce next time. Not really a fan of it fried – all gooey…
Me too! I don’t like fried okra either. I’m all for boiled lady’s fingers.
My parents just dip them into boiling hot water and eat it just like that. I like it that way too but I wanted to make the version that my ex-gf’s mom used to make.
It’s also boiled, just with added sauce. 🙂
Eh, dried prawns sounds promising too! Looks like a great combo. 🙂
My son and I love consuming lady fingers in a very simple way steam lady fingers until cooked cut into bite-sized pieces for toddlers toss with and light soy sauce and serve immediately. The chili shrimp sauce that is served together with it enhances the dish with the much needed tasty flavour to those who dislike the bland taste of cooked lady fingers.
Yup, that’s about the best way to serve lady finger’s. 🙂
I prefer dark soy sauce though – it’s sweeter than the salty light soy sauce and works better with okra.
I actually like the bland taste of lady’s fingers – it has a natural sweetness to it! 🙂
lady’s fingers is one of my favs too! I’d probably add a bit of fried garlic on top just to give it a bit of crunchy texture as well. 😀
Yeah it’s real easy to cook and healthy too!
I just like the way lady finger’s taste – kinda crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, with a few seeds that goes down real smooth with the sweetish slime. Heh. It’s best served hot, it always cools way too fast coz of the air conditioning in our place. There’s two units and one of them is always turned on…and unfortunately that one is just over the kitchen and dining table. 😡
Hmm…fried garlic, we’ve been using that a lot in other dishes for flavor but it would work. 🙂
Dude, try steamed okra, takes the texture department to another level.
Yeah that sounds delicious too! I’m guessing it’ll come out soft and silky instead of crunchy.
Thanks for the tip bro, I’ll definately do this one. Sounds like a winner. 🙂
Dude, steaming keeps the texture a lot more crunchy than boiling, because the boiling breaks down texture ( I am not the cook-n-engineer for nothing) , steaming also traps the freshness and goo in the pod,… if you know when to that the okra out of the steamer that is.
Takes some practice, once you master the skill, you’ll never do back to boiling vege. A little baking soda makes the okra green like a picture from foodie magazine.
Thanks for the explaination mate! Interesting…
Yup, it’s all about the goo and if it keeps the goo inside, I’ll love it for sure.
Cheers for the baking soda tip as well. That’s a good one. 🙂
this comment comes pretty late, but my mum uses maggi’s garlic chilli sauce in the place of tomato sauce and sometimes no sugar at all. it’s a lot more savoury i guess! i never liked slimy vegetables such as okra before, not till recently haha.
Hello there Irene! 🙂
Hey, that sounds pretty good as well. It’ll produce a totally different flavor though – tangy and spicy instead of sweet. I like it sweet but your mom’s recipe for the sauce sounds great too! I’ll give it a go.
Heh! Me too, I’ve only recently started to eat more vegetables but I’ve always loved the slimy and rich (like eggplant, brinjals) ones. 🙂
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