Today, I cooked one of the dishes popular in the Middle East, East and North Africa. It is a stew made of leafy vegetable named "Molokhia" in Arabic.

Molokhia is the leaves of corchorus olitorius which is also known as Jute mallow or nalta jute. It is a species of shrub that belong to Malvaceae family and is considered a primary source of jute fiber. Wikipedia

The stew is mainly cooked with chicken, but some recipe use beef. In Egypt, it is popular to use rabbit meat in the recipe.

The leaves can be cooked whole or finely chopped.

Molokhia with Chicken

The recipe

Ingredients	Amounts	weight (gm)/volume (ml)
Molokia Leaves	~ 3 bags	~ 400 gm each
Onion	~ 4 small	could be less depends on how much you like onions
Fresh Garlic	~ 5 small cloves	could be less depends on how much you like garlic
Fresh Coriander	~ 1 full bouquet
Chicken	~ 1 full	You may add less or none
Lemon or lime juice	~ 1/4 cup	This is approximate. You may add less or more as you desire
Oil	~1/4 cup	This is approximate. You may add less or more as you desire
salt and pepper	~ 1 tsp	or to your taste

The Method

1- Boil the chicken with a small stick of cinnamon, 1 piece of clove spice and one cardamom seed.

Addition of these spices is not necessary, but they add a nice aroma and a slight flavor to the chicken stock

2- Chop the Coriander as finely as possible

3- Prepare the Onion (I cut them small squares)

4- Prepare the garlic (I chop them)

5- Heat the oil on Med, add the garlic and coriander until their aroma becomes nice.

6- Add the onions and cook until they softens a bit.

7- Unpack the the Molokhia and add it on top of the mixture

This time I used whole leaves Molokhia. You can find it frozen in many grocery stores that sell Middle Eastern food.

8- Slowly spread the leaves from each other and mix with the other ingredients

It is a bit thick and slimy to touch, like okra, at the beginning

9- Bring it to boil and let it cook for about 10-15min

10- Cut the chicken to small pieces.

11- Add the lemon juice, chicken and about 2 cups of chicken stock.

12- Let it cook for another 10-15 min or until liquid becomes less and all ingredients are mixed nicely.

13- Enjoy 😁

The recipe calorie count

This is an approximate calculation of the calories for this recipe

Final Notes

1- Molokhia can be enjoyed with naan bread, pita bread, or rice.

2- You can add some more lemon juice before eating.

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