Molokhia

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #179. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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What does digital grass feel like?

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Venba is a game about a family who moves from India to Canada, the ways that food connects them – and the ways it doesn’t. Throughout the game, Venba tries to use her mother’s recipes to get through to her son, Kavin. But Kavin wants to fit in. He wants to speak English, to spend time with his friends over his parents and most of all to not have to bring strange lunches to school.

My father’s family is Italian, but lived for decades in Egypt before my father was born, before moving to the UK when he was four. When I was growing up, my grandmother didn’t speak good English; she was fluent in Italian and Arabic. We would go to her house and she would cook. I don’t remember what, exactly. My dad taught us to say we don’t want your stinking food.

Kavin has an uneasy relationship with his Tamil roots. I wonder what Kavin’s children will think?

I wish my parents had raised us bilingual – my mother apparently wanted to, but my dad didn’t. I wish I knew my grandmother’s recipes. I wish I hadn’t been taught to be mean to her about them.

At the end of the game, there is some hope. Kavin flies to visit Venba, who has moved back to India. They cook together. My father has one recipe he makes. He calls it molokhia. Wikipedia says that’s not a valid spelling – it can be spelled mulukhiyah, mulukhiyya, molokhiyya or melokhiyya – but this is my dad’s recipe, and it’s not exactly the same thing, anyway.

Mulukhiyah is made from jute, cooked with chicken or beef stock. My dad, who has spent 95% of his life in the UK, where jute doesn’t grow and isn’t sold, has also been a vegetarian for four decades. He makes molokhia. It’s a dish probably no one else makes that’s a product of the spaces he’s occupied in his life. Here’s the recipe, written by him, edited by me.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 750g frozen spinach, defrosted and heated just before adding
• 500ml hot vegetable stock made at 1.5 or 2x strength
• 1 medium onion
• 6 large garlic cloves
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 heaped tbsp ground coriander
• 1 level tsp ground cumin*
• Pinch chili or cayenne pepper

Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry gently in the oil for about 5-10 minutes until it starts to go golden.

Add the cumin and chili and only 1 teaspoon of the coriander. Fry for just a short while – perhaps 15 to 30 seconds, then add the (hot) spinach and mix well.

Bring to the boil, then add the (hot) vegetable stock and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the remaining coriander, remove from the heat and blend to smooth consistency. **

Occasionally (and inexplicably!), it ends up too thick – water down with more (hot) vegetable stock.

Ideally, serve immediately over rice with or without a bean of your choice, but it keeps its flavor well, so can be reheated – the more it is boiled, the more flavor is lost.

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* My dad says this is optional. I disagree.

** Notes from my dad: “a stick blender is by far the easiest for this along with a large pan for cooking it in.”

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Jay Castello is a freelance writer covering games and internet culture. If they’re not down a research rabbit hole you’ll probably find them taking bad photographs in the woods.