Another word on malunggay aka 'moringa'
Everyone's going ga-ga with moringa or the 'lowly' malunggay. It used to be that this was considered staplefood of the economically challenge. I remember that back then my father had lots of malunggay trees in our vegetable yard. When there's a good harvest usually during the summer months, my mother extracts the fleshy white part of the pod(fruit) and saute it with lots of tomatoes, onions and garlic. Add a little salt and its good to go with fried fish. The white flowers, as I recall we made into salads. Fresh from the garden, my mother infuses it with boiling water for about a minute, adds fresh tomatoes pinch of salt and pepper and presto. The leaves, ahhh the leaves, it is my father's favorite veggie addition to tinola a chicken soup dish that usually incorporates green papaya along with pepper or sili leaves. My father's version, on the other hand use a lot of malunggay leaves instead of sili. When I cook souped clams these days, I also use malunggay