This recipe comes from Dayra at AMDAE, an SPI partner in Colombia. Dayra received seeds through her partnership with Seed Programs International, which supplied her working farm with vegetables. She prepared a delicious stew with okra that was harvested on the farm and graciously shared her recipe, along with a short video.
Recipe with Quimbombó (Okra) ingredients:
- 2 ½ cups of sliced okra (500 grams of okra)
- 1 white onion, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 3 celery sticks
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- 1 tomato
- Finely grated coconut
Preparation
- Heat the skillet over low heat, heat the oil.
- Add a tablespoon of peanut butter and vegetables, followed by celery.
- Season with a little salt.
- Add the thyme and the okra to cook along with the vegetables.
- Finally blend the grated coconut with a cup of water and let it simmer until sauce thickens.
See a short video of Dayra’s preparation → [insert video link here]
Note: The Okra must be tender.
About Dayra and AMDAE
Dayra was displaced from her ancestral lands in Tumaco, Colombia and began organizing with other displaced Afro-Colombian, Indigenous, and campesino women in Bogotá, creating spaces of sharing and hope.
Dayra is the Director of AMDAE (Asociación Mutual para el desarrollo integral de la Afrocolombianidad y el empresarismo [Association for holistic, participatory development of Afro Colombian identity and entrepreneurship]). AMDAE currently works with gardeners in Bogotá and at the farm in Agua de Dios. Agua de Dios is a municipality and town in Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca. Columbia has 32 departments, each with its own local government. For the past five years, AMDAE has been working in the port city of Tumaco on the Pacific. They also have projects in the state of Cauca (east of Tumaco in the next valley) and in La Guajira (a state on the Caribbean coast).
The working and teaching farm in Aqua de Dios includes 50 hectares, a house, a shed, a warehouse, and water. Twenty hectares are suitable for farming. They also are raising fish.
This working farm is becoming a cultural learning center available to all Colombians, sharing all aspects of Afro-Colombian culture with the general community — farming techniques, knowledge of plants for healing, eating, seasoning, art, music, dance, and more!
About Okra & Quimbobo
“Okra is a key ingredient in many Caribbean and South American dishes. “Frango com quiabo” (chicken with okra) is especially famous in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais. In Curacoa, a soup know as jambo is made of the okra’s mucilage and often prepared with fish and funchi, a dish made of cornmeal and boiling water. In Cuba, it is called quimbombo and is the primary ingredient of a stew. In Barbados, okra is a main ingredient in the cornmeal-based meal called cou-cou that is similar to polenta. (It has also been known to be sliced and added to the French dish ratatouille.)”
Read the full article at the Florida Times-Union →
Learn more about okra at ECHO →
See the okra fact sheet at Farmer Foodshare →
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