Oklahoma - Choctaw Catfish and Fried Okra

For my second foodie challenge this time round, I wanted to cook a Native American dish, especially one that comes from Oklahoma.  Having searched the Internet for recipes, I came across these two on my old favourite http://www.allrecipes.com/

The first one was for Fried Okra

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fried-Okra/Detail.aspx

And the second one was for Choctaw Catfish http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Choctaw-Catfish/Detail.aspx

I have to say at this point that I'm no Jamie Oliver!  But I did my best - Okra is something I've seen so many times in the supermarket and wondered what it might taste like.  I don't cook fish very often, so the Choctaw dish was a challenge for me.

Fried Okra

First, the ingredients:

A cup full of Cornflower (seems to be ubiquitous in Oklahoman cooking!)
An egg
Some Okra pods
Vegetable oil for frying
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Chop the Okra into small pieces and soak in a bowl with the egg for 5 to 10 minutes.  In another bowl mix together the cornmeal, salt and ground pepper, then mix the whole lot together and fry on the pan until crisp and golden brown - simple as that!

Choctaw Catfish

I couldn't find catfish, although I did try at our Caribbean fishmongers on the Uxbridge Road!  I'm sure there must be catfish somewhere in London, but I had to make do with Tilapia, which seems to be everywhere!  The face of the shop assistant when I asked him whether or not Tilapia was a river fish was enough to make me not want to ask him a difficult question ever again.  Never mind, fish is fish, right?

I marinated the fish in buttermilk for a few hours, which made it really tender and flavoursome.  Then I mixed together (yet more) cornmeal with salt and steak seasoning.  The recipe stipulated 'onion salt', but try as I might I couldn't find onion salt anywhere, not even in Waitrose!!  I coated the marinated fish in the flour mixture, then fried each piece of fish in the pan for about 8 or 9 minutes.  I wasn't sure what to serve it with, but Zhenya had a craving for white rice, so white rice it was - I think next time round, it would be nice to serve some greens, or even brown rice, for a bit of contrast.  We enjoyed it anyway!

Image credits:  All photos were taken by me :-)

Oklahoma - How I made cornbread

I must admit that this isn't the first time I've ever made Cornbread, as it's a recipe I've used many times before. 

Nevertheless, I thought I would include it in this blog, as it's such a staple from the mid-West US.  I've made it a little bit spicier than usual by adding chillies and my recipe was inspired by http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/

First to start with the ingredients: 

200 g of Plain Flour
150 g of Corn Flour (that's Cornmeal to my US readers!)
2 tea spoons of Baking Powder
40 g of butter
A good amount of grated cheese
2 eggs
2 green chillies (or red, but green looks better)
150 ml of milk, more or less

Prepare the cheese, chillies and eggs, sieve the two types of flour into a bowl

Mix the Flour, Baking Powder, Chillies and Cheese together in one bowl and the eggs, milk and (melted) butter in another - then combine them together and mix gently

You end up with a fairly sticky dough, although you can add more liquid to this according to taste, I think I'll up the quantity of milk next time, as I like my bread kind of fluffy!

Once, you've mixed it together, pour it into a container (bread tin or cake tin) and pop it into a pre-heated oven (200 degrees) for 30/40 minutes

Easy-peasy - the result is a very yummy bread that will impress the whole family - I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!!

Image credits

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to copy and use them within the terms of the Creative Commons License, including accreditation and a link to my blog :-)