Put 1 chicken (I like best the organic free range type) in a pot, fill with water to cover the chicken,and add the ingredients below to make the broth:

1 onion with two cloves in it
A couple cloves garlic
Juice of half a lemon
2 Maggi cubes (bouillon cubes) or whatever you use to make a chicken broth

Spices:

  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • a few peppercorns
  • a few sweet peppercorns
  • Allspice
  • 7-spices
  • Ground coriander

If you don’t have all those spices, don’t worry about it. the idea is to make a good aromatic chicken broth. Use the “middle-Eastern spices” you have.

Boil until the chicken is cooked.

When the chicken is done, pass the broth through a sieve and “debone” the chicken, then set all the chicken pieces aside.

Frozen mouloukhieh leaves may be found in middle-eastern groceries. Put two packages of frozen mouloukhieh leaves in the sieved broth and bring to a gentle boil. Don’t let it boil too much.

Take a big bunch of cleaned fresh coriander leaves (cilantro), and finely chop it together with 7 or 8 cloves garlic. Gently fry the mixture in some olive oil (or neutral sunflower seed or grapeseed oil). It smells heavenly 🙂 After a few minutes, pour the whole thing in the mouloukhieh broth. Add the chicken pieces to the pot, then adjust the taste with salt and lemon if needed.