Slow Stew · Jute Leaf
Mloukhiya
Photo: IssamBarhoumi / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The sauce cooks down so thick and dark that it's often served with the meat still on the bone, meant to be pulled apart and dunked rather than sliced.
Dried, ground jute-mallow leaves are cooked for hours with beef or lamb until the stew turns a deep, near-black green and thickens to a glossy consistency. It's ladled over bread or couscous at the small gargotes around the Tunis medina.
Why it's made this way: The long, unhurried cooking time makes mloukhiya a weekend dish in the capital, one families still simmer on low heat all afternoon the way earlier generations did.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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