Indian restaurant menus are usually chock full of spicy, delicious offerings like baingan bharta, chana masala, vegetable biryani and mushroom matar. Another food you’ll often find in those pages is a Bhindi Masala. Whether you love okra or hate it with a passion – and everyone falls in one of those two categories – you will love Bhindi Masala. Most Indians fall into the first category, the kind that loves okra, which also goes in that country (thanks to the British) by the macabre name of ladies’ fingers. That’s because Indian cooks learned long ago that the first rule of cooking okra is to rid it of that hateful goop or slime that can transform this veggie from delicious to dreadful (although that goop can be a useful thickener in recipes like gumbo and in sambar, a South Indian dal). The way this is usually done is either by stir-frying the okra (like in this bhindi ki sabzi) or by frying the okra in oil before adding it to the rest of the recipe. The latter is the technique usually used for Bhindi Masala where you really, really want your bhindi, or okra, to be crisp and firm, not ooey and gooey. But today, for you, I have a third way, and it’s a stroke of genius, even if I say so myself. An air fryer. I told you about this, my new favorite appliance, in my Air Fryer Tofu recipe post last week. And I’ve been having a blast discovering new ways to use it to help me in the kitchen. For this Bhindi Masala recipe, I would have, in the past, used the oven to cook the okra using less oil (and you can do that for this recipe if you don’t have an air fryer). But an air fryer just made things so much easier. This recipe comes together really quickly, and surprisingly so for a dish with so much flavor. And you can make it even faster if you have my Tomato Onion Masala Sauce for Indian Curries in your refrigerator (instructions are included separately in the recipe box below). Check to get new recipe updates by email.
How to make Bhindi Masala
Once again, getting the slime out – or rather never letting it get out of – the okra pod is key. So before you do anything, wash your okra and then dry it thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. After rinsing it in a strainer, put it between two kitchen towels and pat dry. Then put it on a baking sheet if you need to and let it stand and air dry further. You get the idea? While on that thought, don’t use frozen okra in this recipe. Frozen okra comes slimy out of the bag, so if you want a great-textured, unslimy okra, frozen simply won’t work. And yes, the fresh okra need trimming and chopping, but you want some yummy food, don’t you? Trim the ends off the okra, then cut it in 1 ½-inch pieces for the best restaurant-quality effect. Some recipes ask you to slit the okra on one side, but I don’t find that necessary. The pieces are small enough that the sauce will penetrate and flavor the okra. The recipe is for a pound of okra and that amount fits perfectly in the basket of the air fryer. You will need to pull out the basket halfway through cooking and give it a shake to move the okra around and make sure everything is cooking evenly. Toss the okra in a teaspoon of oil before air frying for the best results. If you don’t have an air-fryer, you can either stir-fry your okra in a wok or skillet with two tablespoons of oil, set aside, then proceed with the rest of the recipe; or you can toss it with a teaspoon of oil, spread in a single layer on a baking sheet, and cook in a 450-degree oven for 15 minutes or until the okra is almost done. Shake the okra around halfway through to make sure it cooks evenly. Now that we have the okra all sorted out, let’s move on with the rest of the recipe. You want to chop your onions fine, ditto for the tomatoes. That’s because you want them to break down into a lovely, lush sauce for the okra that you can scoop up with a roti. Like I said earlier, if you have my tomato onion masala sauce handy, you can make even shorter work of this Bhindi Masala. All you’d need to get this yummy dish on your table would be 15 minutes, tops. But even if you start it from scratch, you can do it all in under 30 minutes if you multitask a bit. And by multitask I don’t mean intensive multitasking. You can put your okra in the air fryer or oven, prep your onions, tomatoes, ginger and garlic, and then, once everything is ready, put it all together.
More Indian vegan restaurant dishes
Chole Bhatura or Chana Bhatura Vegan Paneer Butter Masala Vegan Keema Masala Tofu Makhani Palak Paneer or Saag Paneer with Tofu Click here for a collection of Indian vegan restaurant style recipes.
Recipe card
