Vendaikai Vathal | Okra Fryums is prepared by soaking the chopped okra in butter milk for about 2 days and then sun dried until crisp. It’s a super simple recipe and this can be prepared in bulk and stocked up. These okra fryums can be used in Kuzhambu varieties or it can be fried and served as rice accompaniment.
Lady’s Finger - around 50I picked medium sized tender okra
Salt - 1 tbsp
Butter Milk - 3 cups
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Instructions
Prep - work
Wash the okra nicely and trim the ends. Chop the okra into medium sized round pieces.
Steps
Take the butter milk in a vessel with a lid.
Add the salt, red chilly powder and the turmeric powder to the butter milk and mix well. Make sure salt is all dissolved.
Now add the chopped okra to the butter milk solution. If required add more butter milk. Make sure all the okras are properly soaked.
Close the vessel and keep it in fridge. Let it soak for about 2 days. Shake this okra mix once in between.
After two days, drain the butter milk and transfer the okra in a big plate or plastic sheet. (The okra will be sticky but as it dries it will become non-sticky)
Sun dry this okra until they are crisp and completely dried like below.
Frying
The vegetable based fryums should be fried in low heat. Basically what I do is, after frying appalam or other vadagams, I turn off the heat and then add the veggie vadagams like this okra ones. These gets cooked faster.
Fry them until they turn brown.
Notes
Instead of red chilly powder, sambar powder can be used too. Make sure to shake the okra mix once when it is soaking. That’s it. Store them in an air tight container and use in vathal kuzhambu or puli kuzhambu. This can be fried and served as rice accompaniment too.