I’m one of those people who have a love-hate relationship with okra. I love the flavor of it – and being from the South, I grew up eating fried okra in quantity. On the other hand, I’m not so fond of the sliminess that cooked okra has. It’s a texture thing. I recently learned that the “slime” factor kicks in when the okra is cut before being cooked – that when the insides of the pod aren’t exposed to air, the okra stays dry. I experimented with this by grilling whole okra and, lo and behold, it’s true. Uncut, whole okra don’t get slimy. Now I’m thinking about roasting them in the oven just to further the experiment.

But I digress. A couple of Mondays ago I posted a link to a spicy pickled okra recipe and it sounded like it was right up my alley. Whole okra (so no slime), and spicy? Hello? What’s not to love. So on Friday I made an experimental batch of these.

I didn’t have all the ingredients from the original recipe on hand, so I just punted. I started out with a little over 1/2 lb of fresh okra (I tried to pick the smaller pods so they would make good one-bite snacks), some cider vinegar, garlic, dried chili peppers, some pepper flakes, mustard seed, a few whole allspice, and some salt.

I packed the okra, garlic, and dried chilis into a quart canning jar. Then I boiled the vinegar, pepper flakes, and salt and poured them over the okra. After the mixture had a chance to cool a bit, I topped off the jar with water, capped it, and pushed it to the back of the fridge. I topped it off with more water on Saturday afternoon, as I found that the okra absorbed quite a bit of the liquid over the course of the first 24 hours.

Sunday, I pulled one out and tried it. Mmm. Crunchy, spicy, and tart. I’m thinking these need a few weeks to really pickle up nicely and they’ll be perfect for serving with sandwiches, garnishing a bloody mary, or even just snacking on as they are.