Molokhia-ish (Meat, spinach and okra) stew

 Sometimes you have to roll with the punches and figure out what the spirit of a dish is. In this case I'm talking about Molokhia, one of my favorite foods in all the world. It's a soup made from a rich spiced broth with ground jute leaves and it's absolutely wonderful. A silky texture from the draw of the leaves and a wonderfully savory flavor from the spices, meat and veggies.

Now in this case I am not making that exactly, but rather using a cheapskate back-alley conversion for some leftover lamb saag I had (from the SCA feast we did over the weekend). I'll give you a more straight up recipe than I used, but the whole deal with cooking is making what you have work for you so keep that in mind, in food, in life, and in the rampant destruction of all who oppose you. The real secret here though is using ground okra and spinach to simulate the texture of the jute leaves so check it out.

Also feel free to use actual molokhia instead of spinach and okra!

Yield: 4 dinner sized servings

Ingredients:

Soup:

Meat 1 lb boneless, or 2 lbs bone in. (Chicken, lamb, beef, whatever)

12oz block of frozen spinach -thawed out

1 lb chopped okra

Water

1 TBS cumin powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom

1 Onion diced

Salt and Pepper to taste

¼ C chopped cilantro

Tempering:

¼ C olive oil, butter, or ghee

2 TBS coriander powder

4 cloves minced garlic

Condiment (It's not necessarily traditional but I love it with this):

1 tomato chopped

1 minced onion

½ Jalepeno chopped

1 lime juiced

pinch of salt

Method:

1. Heat a pot up with a little oil and sautee your onions with some salt, then add your meat and water to cover.
2. Bring to a boil the reduce to a simmer until the meat is VERY tender.
3. Remove the meat and set it aside, add your okra and spinach and return to a boil and then simmer until theyre VERY tender (at this point if you used bone in chicken, throw a little salt, pepper and cumin on there and broil it until the skin is crisp and brown)
4. Remove the veggies to a blender and blend coarsely until is all looking soupy, then return to pot on low
5. Heat up your ¼ oil, butter, or ghee in a very small pot to med-high (I used an old Turkish coffee pot to temper)
6. Add in your coriander for 10 seconds then minced garlic for 20 seconds, then add to the soup
7. Make your condiment: I ground up my “salsa” stuff in a food processor, but you can mix that up in whatever size and shape makes you happy.
8. Add salt and water to taste, then put in bowls with the meat on top, and add the condiment if you wish. Serve it with rice or good pita bread.

Today's version from the leftover saag

   

What I use for a tempering pot

#Egyptian #Spinach #Okra #Soup #Stew #Leftovers