Vendakkai (okra) stuffed with Indira’s kobbari kaaram

At home okra or vendaikai is for sambhar or a simple poriyal. Else it will go into a puli kuzhambu (a tamarind based gravy). When we were kids we used to make a big fuss to eat these vendaikai (inspite of amma making us believe that eating okra will increase our arithmetic skills – till now don’t know how ). So one fine day she invented this okra fry which made us empty the vessel in few minutes. Yes! we used to have it by 11 am in the morning straight from the tava 😉
When our dear Indira posted the “kobbari kaaram” recipe I was very tempted to try that with okra and here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:
Fresh tender okra / venkaikai – 20 nos.
Sambar podi – 1 tea spoon
salt – as required
Peanut oil – for shallow frying
Kobbari kaaram – 5 table spoons
Corn flour – 2 table spoons

How to make it?
Wash the okra and dry them with a kitchen towel. Cut the head and tails of the okra. Keep them aside. Make a thick paste by mixing the sambar podi, salt and corn flour adding little water. It should be thick enough to make a thin coating on the okra. Make a vertical slit in each okra like this.
Mix the kobbari karam with a table spoon of ghee to make it just moist. Stuff the kobbari kaaram and ghee mix inside the slit. Make sure you do not overstuff and tear the okras. Once stuffing is done with all the okras give them a thin coating with the corn flour+sambar podi mix.

Heat a tava in the stove and brush some oil. Place the stuffed okras on the tava and shallow fry with required peanut oil. Once properly cooked the okras will tend to turn pale. At this stage you can remove it from the tava and proceed with the remianing ones. You can fry 5-6 okras in a batch.

 

Fresh curd rice with these fried okras are simply divine !