Vegetable Relish (Ndiwo)

Serves     4

Ingredients

4 cups greens (see below for examples), chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon oil
2 small tomatoes, chopped
¼ cup water
salt to taste


Directions

Sauté onions in oil until tender. Add garlic and sauté for one minute. Next, add tomatoes and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the greens, toss and stir for a few minutes to partially wilt, add water and cover the pan. Simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes or until greens are tender. Remove lid and continue to simmer until liquid has evaporated. Serve with nsima or rice.

Common green vegetable leaves used in ndiwo: Cassava leaves, sweet potato leaves, bean leaves, pumpkin leaves, Chinese cabbage, mustard leaves, rape leaves, kale leaves, cabbage, chard, spinach and beet greens

Recipe curator’s note: This is basically a dish of sautéed greens. Just for fun I’ve included the list of possible greens that would be used in Malawi to make this dish. It just goes to show you how no part of a plant is wasted. Pumpkin leaves are a popular choice, but they must be peeled to remove the hairy side of them. Who knew you could peel pumpkin leaves? The greens that I used to make this dish included kale, chard, beet leaves and spinach.


Country:
Malawi


Notes and Instructions

Sources:

Recipe contribution from Linda McElroy, adapted from: Celtnet Recipes

Photo credit: Robyn Lee – originally posted to Flickr, titled sauteed snow pea leaf. Used under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.