I weeded the purslane in my community garden plot today. Some people think that purslane is a weed, but they are very, very wrong. In fact it was eaten as a vegetable, both raw and cooked, in the eastern Mediterranean; it can still be found in Middle Eastern grocery stores in season.
Mind you, the grocery purslane is enormous compared to what is in my garden. That would make the tedious task of pulling leaves off the stems much simpler.
Today’s recipe is number 628 from Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table, a Fourteenth-Century Egyptian Cookbook translated by Nawal Nasrallah: Clean the purslane as described above (ie discard the stems and use the leaves and the tender tips), and boil it. Fry a [chopped] onion in sesame oil, and add the purslane to it. Fold in vinegar sweetened with sugar or bee honey, if you like, in place of the vinegar, use the juice of sour unripe grapes (ma’hisrim) or lemon juice.
I used about a cup of purslane leaves, 1/4 of a yellow onion, 2 Tbsp white vinegar and 1 tsp honey. The final result was slightly sweet and sour, and definitely worth doing again (withh bigger leaves, if possible).
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