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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Moringa Oleifera , my edible bonsai - first salad with moringa leaves

Miracle TreeMoringa Oleifera, Mallungay, Ben, Drumstick Tree fresh leavesToday I made my first salad with fresh moringa leaves. My young Moringa / Malunggay / Sajina / Murungai seedlings, which are sitting in a corner of my house with full light, was growing very quickly and some of them became bigger than 50 cm, so I pinch the terminal growing tip ~10 cm from the top. Secondary branches began appearing on the main stem since one week ago and hope to grow vigorously in next weeks. Maybe soon my Moringa trees will become bushy and will begin to look like a little bonsai tree.
Moringa Oleifera, Mallungay, Ben, Drumstick Tree small plant
I added Moringa leaves in mixed veggies salad with red lettuce, sprouts, tomatoes, mild baby pepper, sunflower seeds, green onion, dill and olive oil. The taste of leaves - similar to spinach but somehow different.  I like their spicy taste and horseradish flavor.

People tend to eat the same foods they grew up with, resisting new foods and dishes, but are hundreds of unique foods available in other corners of world that would add to the diversity of our diet.  How I  am curious by nature, I like to discover other ethnic foods and enjoy totally a variety taste of dishes from different cultures. 
Moringa Oleifera, Mallungay, Ben, Drumstick Tree small treeMORINGA (Malunggay Philippines)I already learned about the great nutrition of Moringa leaves last months (BTW, until this winter I have never heard about this tree) Now I have my own Moringa plants but I need to learn how to use them. I browsed many cook books on the internet and  I found many interesting recipes and how it is used in India, Mexic, Mauritius, Thailand, Philippines and other Asian and African countries.  Many of these  give details about how people from tropical countries used in cooking flowers from Moringa trees and I am very curious about their delicious taste. But I need to wait more weeks until I will taste their flowers...
Grow, moringa tree, grow quickly!

9 comments:

  1. Hi I like your article
    I am from the Philippines and Moringa or malungay as we commonly call it was always part of our menu. When I breastfed our babies, I cooked lots of chicken or fish tinola, shellfish all with moringa leaves.

    Like you, it was only recently that I discovered how amazing moringa is. Now I drink fresh moringa tea, eat the blanched leaves as topping to tuna sandwich and more..

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  2. I am looking Moringa for weight management. It is very important to do a researchon Moringabefore using it. Your blog familiar me with many other benefits of Moringa. Thanks!!!

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  3. any updates on your Moringa? I'm not very familiar with how to search for entries, but I hadn't come across an update yet....curious for sure. best of luck.

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  4. Unfortunately we've lost them in winter.

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  5. sorry to hear it. Are you planning on getting some more seeds and trying again? I haven't tested mine in Winter yet, but our's isn't too bad here in Texas. I figure I'll keep them in the greenhouse a bit longer. they're not super happy, definitely looking forward to Spring. looking forward to updates.

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  6. Yes, for sure Mark, we love Moringa.
    Do you have any tips to share?

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  7. Looking forward to keeping up on any new ones you start. I need to take some new photos of mine, but they're adapting nicely to the warmer weather. I've repotted a lot of them, still have plenty more to do.

    If I get any new photos, I'll definitely let you know. Had a few fun ones recently, here's one of them. It's of one of the seed pods. I ended up taking it off because the trees need to be concentrating on their Spring/Summer growth, and I felt like it didn't need to be worrying about lugging around this heavy seed pod ;)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/markr82/7077529663

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