Molokhia soup (jute cheese soup) is cooked in a rich chicken broth and flavored with a fragrant garlic-coriander paste. It is an iconic Egyptian dish.
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Egyptian Molokhia Recipe | Jute Mallow Soup Recipe
Serious Binge Eating / Kevin White
As an Egyptian immigrant to the United States nothing compares to the joy of making molokhia soup in my kitchen and sharing the story with my children. Molokhia is an iconic Egyptian soup made from the jute malva leaves from which the dish gets its name. The leaves are cooked in a rich chicken broth and flavored with tasha a fragrant garlic-coriander paste sauteed in ghee until velvety smooth. It’s a recipe that fills me with particular nostalgia. Every year toward the end of the last frost in spring I rush to order jute malva seeds online. When they arrive I plant them in the raised beds in my sunny Virginia backyard and eagerly look forward to harvesting them to make molokhia soup a comforting dish that takes me back to afternoons spent in my grandmother’s kitchen. I was born in bustling Cairo and raised in Alexandria a serene Egyptian city on the Mediterranean coast where no weekend meal or celebration was complete without molokhia soup. I have fond memories of long leisurely meals and large gatherings where my family and I enjoyed molokhia soup together. Nowadays most people prepare the soup with frozen molokhia that comes pre-peeled and chopped but my grandmother Aida always used fresh ones just as I do now. I remember her working for hours patiently cutting fresh leaves discarding the muddy stems and rinsing off any clinging soil under running water. She then spread the wet leaves out in a single layer to air-dry in the warmth of the sun. I vividly remember my grandmother hunched over her counter looking as if preparing for a fight. Her palms gripped firmly around the two wooden handles of the mezzaluna and she rocked the knife back and forth tirelessly reducing a mountain of molokhia leaves to a neat pile of finely shredded vegetables.
Without missing a beat she would then add the finely chopped leaves to the simmering broth with one hand while her other hand concentrated on frying the tasha. Then it was time for the funniest part of the whole tradition: my grandmother would dramatically gasp for breath as she added the tasha to the simmering broth a ritual called shahka in Arabic. Legend has it that a successful molokhia soup is only possible if the cook gasps with all his might as he adds the tasha. It’s an Egyptian tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation and one that I will happily pass on to my children.
