Finely-Chopped Mulukhia
Photo: Mimi Cooks
Ingredients
Preparation
About
Mulukhia is a Jute planet. Its name in English is "Jews mellow".
Mulukhia is a leafy summer vegetable that is extremely popular throughout the Middle East. It is available fresh, dry, and frozen. Only the leaves are edible. When using fresh Mulukhia, pick the leaves, rinse several times, and then spread out to dry before chopping or cooking whole leaves.
The main addition to Mulukhia that gives it its distinguished taste is fried garlic with oil, sometimes with added fresh cilantro, and this is called (Ta'lya).
Egyptians cook it usually chopped. They add little tomatoes to it. They are famous for cooking it with rabbit meat. Egyptians also swear that the best Mulukhia is the one that is cooked with shrimps!
Syrians and Lebanese cook it (Burani) which is whole leaves, un-chopped. Palestinians and Jordanians cook it both ways, chopped or/and Burani.
There are two ways of preparing fresh Mulukhia, chopped or whole leaves.
The Chopped method:
-chop it with a special curved knife which has two handles on both sides. Go back and forth with the knife on the leaves until they are finely chopped, but you may use the food processor to chop.