Mulukhiyah

We decided to do a Turkish meal with friends this evening, so we drove down to town where there is a local Turkish market. I looked around at what he had and decided to make Burek (sigara böreği) with Sucuk, because I didn't know if the teenage kids of our friends were vegetarians or not.

Sucuk was easy, and I found some yuffka, but it had sugar in it, which didn't sound right. I explained to the guy behind the counter what I wanted, and he showed me the freezer. Thin Chinese spring roll leaves are just the think for börek. Okay, and I saw what I thought was frozen spinach, so I just grabbed a bag of it and we paid.

When I went to pitch it in the freezer, I discovered that I had a bag of mulukhiyah. The English instructions called it mulukhia. Never heard of it. We decided to use it anyway, since it kind of looked like spinach. I fried up two chopped onions in butter, then added about 200g of the frozen stuff cut up in chunks, some sour cream, some salt, and a can of piknik börek peyniri (picnic burek cheese). This is a feta-like cheese made of cow's milk.

When everything melted and began bubbling we took it off the heat and started the production line. Teenage girl with long fingernails picked off the next spring roll leaf. I put a teaspoon or so of the stuff on it, experimented with different rolling and pinching techniques, and piled them on a plate. Teenage boy (who wants to be a cook) fired up a pan with lots of olive oil in it, and we made about 50 of the things.

They were very, very good. We then looked up what mulukhiyah is on the internet. It is a plant, widely eaten in Egypt and the Middle East, full of good stuff like iron and vitamin A. They are also called mallow leaves. Good job we didn't boil them - boiling apparently turns it into an inedible block of fiber.

I don't know that this will end up my favorite food, but it was an adventure! And I will make burek again soon, that was easy with the spring roll paper.