In Europe, mallow is a plant that is rarely used, except when you're one of those cooks who reinvent the use of plants and flowers, going in search of flavours and forgotten ingredients, like this soup in which the mallow flower is used.
In Morocco, it is used for a delicious salad called bakoula, for which I give you recipe here, a "cooked salad", in fact.
Bakoula, Bakkoula or khobiza ?
Khobiza comes directly from the Arabic name for mallow, خبازة , which is pronounced in standard Arabic "khabaz".
Bakoula, بقولة (with a single or double k, depending on how you transcribe) on the other hand, is specifically Moroccan. It also comes from an Arabic word, بقل , baql, which means "vegetable, green plant, herb" and "salad of green plants" and is found in the name of spinach in Arabic-Andalusian (rayīs el-buqūl) or Maltese (bqajla).

To say "bakoula salad" is therefore a pleonasm. If you want to specify that it's a salad, then you should say "khobiza salad".
Mallow and spinach
Both plants produce green leaves that can be eaten cooked. They don't taste at all the same (and raw bakoula is really not good). Although it is often called "spinach" or "Moroccan spinach", and in practice one can be replaced by the other, the two plants remain very different.
What kind of mallow is bakoula exactly?
There are actually several mallows in Morocco, whose local names are not as distinct as their botanical names! Here, they are simply known as khobiza or bakoula. The main species are the round-leaved or common mallow (Malva neglecta), which is not as tall as the large mallow, and the small-leaved mallow (Malva pusilla). The Great Mallow (Malva sylvestris) and particularly the Mauritanian Mallow (Malva sylvestris var Mauritiana) are rarer.

Bakoula season
Mallow is harvested in late spring in Europe (May and June), but earlier in Morocco: you can start harvesting as early as the beginning of March, when the leaves are still very tender! After cooking, they can be kept for a few days in the fridge or frozen.
This year, harvests are not abundant because of the drought, and a bunch of bakoula costs 4 dirhams. A tiny bunch that fits between your thumb and forefinger. As Moroccans use the whole stalk, which they cut into tiny pieces before cooking the plant, this is still reasonable.

(This bouquet is larger than what is currently available in the souks.)
Tips for harvesting mallow
Mallow, as I understand it, is rarely cultivated here; it is a wild plant that can be harvested. It must therefore be carefully washed and cooked to get rid of any 'dirt' (have I ever told you how Moroccans mistrust raw food?).
In addition to what is removed by cooking, there are also the risks of pollution, as mallow often grows along roadsides, where it can be laden with invisible pollution and heavy metals! So I prefer to harvest it myself, because I love the subtle taste of the leaves, spiced up Moroccan-style.
There are lots of ways to use mallow in cooking!
Unlike the khobiza salad, when I use it instead of spinach, I only use the leaves.
My weekend harvest
This weekend, I had the pleasure of returning to the centre where we had our cooking workshop. In the middle of the countryside, there's a vegetable garden and small embankments sheltered from animals and cars.
So I did a (reasonable) harvest of bakoula.
The harvest took half an hour.
Then I had to sort the leaves and, as I don't use the stems for anything other than khobiza salad, cut them off flush with the stem. It took me just over an hour and a half.
It was also a good opportunity to collect little flowers to decorate other salads, seeds (to plant or to preserve the buds in vinegar) and, above all, to get rid of the 'rusty' leaves. It took me over an hour!
Hollyhock rust
That's what it's called, but in fact this little parasitic fungus can be found on all mallows. Its name is Puccinia malvacearum. Puccinia is native to South America and Australia. Since the end of the 19th century, this fungus has spread throughout the world.
The three stages of rust contamination :
The good news is that it presents no danger to human health, even if it is not appetising. Not to touch, nor to ingest by mistake. (On the other hand, it can happily destroy entire plants).
So I sorted the plants by removing the affected leaves that had the characteristic orange spots. When a large leaf had been partially eaten but there was still some greenery, I kept it.
Preserving your mallow harvest
My main aim was to be able to keep it for a few months, especially for my koulibiac. Or to make a khobiza salad out of season.
So I rinsed the leaves thoroughly, until the water was completely clear. Then I boiled them in a large pot, pushing them under the water with the wooden spoon so that the volume decreased rapidly.

After 5 minutes, I took them out, drained them and ran them under cold water to stop the cooking and preserve their beautiful intense green colour.
After draining, I squeezed them several times to get out as much liquid as possible. Finally, I froze them in individual 100-gram packets (which makes a salad for two). I ended up with 600 grams in all.
What about planting mallow in your garden?
Once an essential plant for simple gardens, mallow is ornamental, melliferous and rustic.

It prefers a spot in semi-shade, adapts well to clay or limestone soils and can withstand the rigours of cold weather as well as the heat of summer, as long as it has water. A biennial, it is planted in spring or autumn and flowers from June to September. It can be completely cut back each spring (and thus produce plenty of salad!) and a single plant will live for two to four years.