Egyptian style Molokhiya

It's hard to describe molokhiya if you've never seen or tasted it. Molokhiya / mulukhiyah / malukhiya etc (sometimes known in English as Jew's mallow) is a Middle Eastern and North African soupy/stew-like dish that uses leaves from the corchorus olitorios plant as a base. The leaves have an unusual texture, mucilaginous or slimy, similar in character to okra. There are a number of different ways to prepare molokhiya, in Tunisia the leaves are dried and ground to a fine powder before being mixed with oil and slow cooked in a stew, in other countries of the Middle East the dried leaves may be used, in Egypt often the fresh leaf is preferred. I've made molokhiya before using the Tunisian method (I brought back 1kg of molokhiya powder when I was last there), but as fresh molokhiya is pretty much impossible to find here Egyptian style is something I have never attempted. However a work colleague who is of Sudanese origin informed me that one of the Asian grocery stores now had little Egyptian /Sudan section, and in addition to stocking the dried leaf, they also had frozen molokhiya! So, what's a person to do? I made a trip there pronto and gathered all the ingredients together to cook up an Alexandrian style molokhiya with prawns! In the rest of Egypt rabbit, or perhaps lamb is the preferred meat, and when I have cooked molokhiya before I used soya chunks. While I am pretty much 99% vegetarian, however, I do on occasion eat fish and prawns, and having found some juicy looking tiger prawns in the supermarket I knew just what to do with them...

400g bag frozen molokhia
~500ml vegetable stock
Olive oil
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon harissa
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 large bunch of coriander
For takliya
Margarine or butter
1 tsp ground coriander
4 cloves of garlic (crushed)

6-8 large prawns

1. Slice the onions thinly and fry in olive oil with crushed garlic until softened. Stir in the tomato paste, harissa, and spices and cook for a few minutes. Add vegetable stock (around 500ml) and the frozen molokhia. I just put the block in the pan and waited for it to thaw

2. Once it’s melted stir it in, put the lid on and simmer on a very low heat for around 30 minutes
3. When the molokhia is almost done, make the takliya, which is the garlicky sauce to mix in. Fry crushed garlic and coriander until golden brown, and then stir into the molokhia mixture
4. Stir in the finely chopped coriander, and turn off the heat 
5. I reserved a little of the takliya back and then added the prawns to the pan to cook in the garlicky and buttery juices
6. Serve with white rice and lemon slices to squeeze over.

Bamya (Egyptian style okra stew)

I love okra in all its forms, but none more so than in the hearty Egyptian stew bamya. As with a lot of Middle Eastern and North African foods, the recipes are shared throughout the region, but with subtle differences. Bamya in Egypt pretty much always contains meat of some sort, after much trialand error I found that rather than use  meat substitute, using grilled chunks of aubergine work perfectly. Especially when marinated in a sweet and sour vinegary marinade.
As with all my recipes, the amounts are approximations, use more or less liquid depending on how much okra you have.

Ingredients
300g okra
1 large onion 
1 aubergine 
Olive oil
8 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp caraway seeds
2 tablespoons of tomato paste 
200ml of passata 
Margarine or butter (a good sized dollop)

For the marinade
A splash of balsamic vinegar
A splash of regular vinegar
Olive oil
1 tablespoon ground cumin, coriander and caraway seeds
Salt
1 tsp smoked paprika 

1. Cut the aubergine into large cubes and grill on a griddle pan until done, I don't add any oil. If you prefer you could roast the aubergine slices in the oven. You want them to keep a bit of body, so don't overcook
2. While the aubergines are cooking dry roast the cumin, coriander and caraway seeds and then grind in a pestle and mortar or a coffee grinder. (As an aside, this spice combination is known as tabil and is Tunisian in origin, while not strictly used in the Egyptian version, Egyptian cuisine does use coriander and cumin heavily, so as I always have tabil ready made I tend to just use that)
3. Tip the still hot aubergine cubes into a container and add the balsamic vinegar, regular vinegar and spices. Leave for at least an hour
4. Grate the onions, and fry in olive oil with 4 cloves of crushed garlic until golden brown
5. Add the okra and sautee for a few minutes
6. Stir in the spices and tomato paste and then add the passata. Top up with some boiled water if the sauce needs thinning down
7. Bring to the boil, and then simmer on a low heat for around 30 minutes or until the okra is tender
8. Now add the aubergine chunks and cook for another 10 minutes
9. As the bamya simmers, crush the remainder of the garlic and fry with the dried coriander in butter or margarine until golden brown, this is called the takliya and is the finishing touch in many Egyptian dishes
10. Pour the takliya into the bamya taking care not to miss a drop (I usually pour a little of the tomato sauce into the pan that the garlic has been frying in just to catch all of that garlicky goodness)
11. Serve with white rice and a squeeze of lemon joice

Kar Assaly (Egyptian pumpkin pie)

I've been woefully neglectful of my blog of late (but not of cooking and if anyone is interested in following my cooking experimentation I can be found here on Instagram). I've a ton of recipes that I've been meaning to upload, but I have been without a laptop, and unable to upload using my mobile phone, so they have had to languish a bit. Hopefully I'll be a bit more regular in my updates now! 

It’s winter and the grocery stores are filled with pumpkins and squashes, I normally prefer my pumpkins savoury, but had been intended on experimenting with sweet. I’d recently acquired a copy of an Egyptian cookbook, and one dessert recipe in particular caught my eye, Kar Assaly. It’s pie-like dessert with a sweet pumpkin base smothered in a creamy béchamel sauce and baked in the oven. The original recipe is quite heavy, and has a lot of added sugar, now… while I do like my desserts sweet, I decided to try and use as little sugar as possible, so to the base I added some grated sweet potato and carrot to add natural sweetness. I also went down the non-dairy route, mainly because my local supermarket was selling off some hazelnut milk, and I thought that would make a lovely addition to the béchamel. If you prefer to go with the original, then add sugar to taste to the pumpkin mixture, and substitute regular milk for the hazelnut milk.

Ingredients
1 small sweet potato (grated)
2 carrots (grated)
500g pumpkin (ideally butternut squash)
6 cardamom pods
1 stick of cinnamon
2 tablespoons orange blossom water
100g desiccated coconut
50g chopped nuts
Squeeze of honey (optional)
Handful of raisins (optional)

For the béchamel
50g margarine or ghee
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk (adjust according to thickness)

1. Add the grated carrots and sweet potato to a pan with the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick and enough water to cover and simmer until they start to disintegrate. While these are cooking, boil the pumpkin until tender and drain (if you want to go for the original recipe, boil the pumpkin in sugar water)
2. Remove the cardamom pods and cinnamon from the carrot and sweet potato mixture, mash the pumpkin and add to the pan. Stir in the coconut and orange blossom water. The pumpkin filling should have the consistency of thick mashed potato, if it’s too runny add more coconut, if too thick then add a little of the pumpkin cooking liquid
3. Spread a layer of the pumpkin in the bottom of an oven proof dish. Top with some of the nuts and raisins and then add the remainder and the rest of the nuts
4. To make the béchamel sauce, fry the flour in margarine or ghee until it loses the raw smell
5. Whisk in the milk, adding a small amount at first
Cook for around 10 minutes until thickened, if the sauce is too thick then just add more milk until it’s the desired thickness
6. Pour over the top of the pumpkin mixture (I sprinkled some flaked almonds on for a bit of extra texture) and bake until golden brown and bubbling (around 20-30 minutes) eat hot, warm or room temperature!