My parents moved houses often but always within West Beirut, the Muslim part of the city. I am not quite sure why because our homes were all the same style: large airy flats and all within walking distance of Hamra, which was then the Bond Street of Beirut. I liked everywhere we lived but I have particularly fond memories of our first home, on the top floor of a wonderful 1950’s building with one curved corner that was my room. And I loved our last even though I had left Beirut by the time my parents moved there. It was on the ground floor of a 1920’s building that had very high ceilings and a narrow garden that wrapped around one side that was full of gardenia trees. The street on which the building stood was narrow and right behind the underpass that became the boundary between West and East Beirut (which was the Christian part) during the civil war that lasted for more than 15 years, from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s.
Directly opposite was a tiny sweet shop where a delightful sweet-maker called Mustapha sold the best ever k’nafeh, a sweet cheese and semolina pie eaten hot inside a sesame galette that looked like a handbag. When a customer came in for k’nafeh, Mustapha would cut open the fat part of the galette, drizzle sugar syrup all over the inside then stuff pieces of k’nafeh into it using his spatula to contain the melting cheese. He then wrapped the handle part of the galette in paper and handed the bulging sweet sandwich to the customer. K’nafeh is, together with manaqish (see here), one of our great breakfasts and my absolute favourite despite the lethal calorie count.
Whenever I returned to visit my parents, I would have k’nafeh for my first breakfast back home even if I had to wake up early. Mustapha sold out quickly but all I had to do was to call out from the kitchen window – his shop was only a few metres on the other side of the street – to ask him to send me a k’nafeh ‘sandwich’ with the boy who helped in the shop. It took only a few minutes for my delicious treat to be delivered and I can still see the kitchen table where I sat, which my mother covered with a plastic tablecloth, taking one luscious bite after the other, getting my fingers and the tablecloth all sticky with the dripping syrup while listening to my mother asking me what I wanted for lunch – my home visits seemed to revolve around food long before I started writing about it! Sadly, Mustapha is long gone, as is our home – the building was demolished shortly after the end of the civil war to make way for another high rise. Beirut is bristling with them now.
What is surprising though is that in all the years that I lived in Beirut, and for many years after, I never knew how k’nafeh or most other sweets for that matter were made. There was something mysterious about sweet-makers and their craft. Whereas you could see most of what went on in bakeries, the sweet-makers’ kitchens were secret places where no one outside of the profession went and most of what we bought from sweet-makers, we never made at home. It wasn’t until much later, when I started researching and writing about food, that I began to visit various sweet-makers’ kitchens to unravel the secrets behind some of the world’s most sophisticated and ancient sweets.
Sugar Syrup
You can divide the sweets of the Levant in two main categories: those that require sugar syrup (and not honey as many seem to think) and those that don’t. And there are just as many that are sweetened with sugar syrup as those that are not. The basic ingredients for the syrup are sugar, water and lemon juice, although the proportions vary from country to country. The Iranians add fragrance with rose water, while the Syrians and Lebanese use a combination of rose and orange blossom water. The Turks prefer theirs plain, by contrast; their syrup is also thinner, with almost the same amount of water to sugar.
Below are the three basic types of syrup used with the different sweets included in this chapter:
Lebanese Sugar Syrup
350g (12oz) golden caster sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rose water
1 tbsp orange blossom water
Put the sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with 100ml (3½fl oz) of water and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Boil for 3 minutes, then add the rose and orange blossom water. Mix well and remove from the heat, letting the syrup cool down before you use it.
Iranian sugar syrup
250g (9oz) golden caster sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1½ tbsp rose water
Put the sugar and 125ml (4½fl oz) of water in a saucepan and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10–15 minutes. Add the lemon juice and simmer for a minute or so before removing from the heat and adding the rose water. Let the syrup cool down before you use it.
Turkish sugar syrup
600g (1lb 5oz) golden caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
Put the sugar and 500ml (18fl oz) of water in a saucepan. Add the lemon juice and place over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and allow to bubble gently for a few minutes, stirring regularly. Take off the heat and set aside to cool before using it.
Aniseed Fritters
MA’CARÛN
Throughout the Levant, it is rare for sweets to be served at the end of a meal unless it’s a special occasion. Instead, people have fruit and coffee or tea while sweets are usually consumed separately in between meals. And most Levantine sweets are associated with religious feasts or special celebrations, with each boasting its own speciality. Some are shared between the two main religions, Islam and Christianity, while others are particular to one or the other. Ma’carûn comes into the former category. It is particularly associated with Epiphany (Gh’tass) and Ramadan, as well as the feast of breaking the fast (Eid el-Futr) that marks the end of Ramadan. At such times sweet-makers will have mounds of ma’carûn piled high on huge metal trays next to other fritters such as ’uwwamat and zûlabiyah. These fritters are also made in Lebanon for the feast of the Virgin (Eid el-Saydeh) in mid-August. They can be made with flour or semolina, although I prefer using semolina for a crumblier texture.
Makes 25 fritters
250g (9oz) fine semolina
¼ tsp (⅛ × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
1 tsp ground aniseed
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
Mix the semolina, yeast, ground aniseed and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Add the olive oil and work it into the semolina mixture with your fingertips until fully incorporated. Pour in 125ml (4½fl oz) of water and knead by hand until you have a firm, elastic dough. Cover with cling film and let it rest for 45 minutes.
Divide the dough into 25 equal-sized pieces. Shape each into a fat sausage, about 7cm (2¾in) long. Place the rolled pastry against a flat perforated surface, like the bottom of a colander, and with your fingers press down on the dough, rolling it towards you to produce a knobbly surface all over. Place, groove side down, on a platter and continue shaping the remaining pieces of dough in the same way until you have finished all 25 fritters.
Pour enough vegetable oil in a large, deep-sided frying pan to deep-fry the ma’carûn, and set over a medium heat. To test whether the oil is hot enough, add a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Drop in as many fritters as will fit comfortably in the pan and fry until golden brown all over. Remove with a slotted spoon and drop into the sugar syrup. Let the ma’carûn soak up the syrup while the second batch is frying, then lift them out and drop the second batch into the syrup. Serve at room temperature.
Iranian ‘Churros’
BÂMIEH
I like to call these ‘churros’ because they are not that different from the Spanish sweet except for the rose water, which makes them more interesting in my view. You’ll find a variation on these in Turkey and India too.
Serves 4–6
30g (1oz) unsalted butter
150g (5oz) unbleached plain flour
2 large organic eggs
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Iranian sugar syrup
Piping bag with a large rosette nozzle
Put the butter in a saucepan and add 150ml (5fl oz) of water. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low and add the flour, whisking it in quickly until you have a smooth but rather thick batter. Once the flour is fully incorporated, whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until the mixture is soft and shiny. Remove from the heat and cover with a cloth.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a large, deep-sided frying pan and place over a medium heat. To test whether the oil is hot enough, dip in a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Scoop the batter into the piping bag and pipe the batter into the oil to make sticks around 8cm (3in) long. Fry until golden brown all over.
Remove with a slotted spoon and drop into the cooled syrup, turning the churros in the syrup to coat them well. Place a wire rack over a baking sheet and transfer the syrupy churros onto the rack to get rid of the excess syrup. Serve at room temperature. These will last for a couple of days if kept in an airtight container.
Iranian Elephant’s Ears
GÛSH-E FIL
Here is a very simple and incredibly moreish dessert whose delightful name comes from the way the little wavy squares of fried pastry are supposed to look like the ears of an elephant. Traditionally, Iranian women kneaded their own dough and rolled it out very thinly, but I have learned from the late Margaret Shaida, whose recipe I have adapted here, that filo pastry is just as effective as well as simpler to use. I have also successfully used warqa and yufka (Turkish filo – see here). If you are going to use filo, choose a brand that is slightly thicker than the Turkish or Greek varieties. This is one occasion when supermarket filo works better.
Serves 4–6
60g (2oz) filo pastry
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Iranian sugar syrup
Unroll the sheets of filo and make sure they are well aligned. Cut them into 5cm (2in) squares and cover with cling film to prevent the pastry from drying out. Then pick up every two squares together and pinch the sides tight. By having two layers and pinching the edges together, the middle will puff while frying and you will get pillowy fritters. Lay on a clean tea towel and cover with another. It is important to keep the pastry covered all the time or it will dry up and crumble before you even get a chance to fry it.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a large, deep-sided frying pan to deep-fry the squares and have the syrup ready by the pan to drop them into it. To test whether the oil is hot enough, add a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Fry as many squares as will fit comfortably in the pan, turning them over in the oil until golden on both sides.
Remove each square with a slotted spoon and drop into the cold syrup. Carefully turn in the syrup and transfer to a wire rack placed over a baking sheet for any excess syrup to drain. Serve immediately as these are too delicate to keep for any length of time.
The Lady’s Wrists
Z’NUD EL-SITT
Hallab is the great sweet-maker in Tripoli in northern Lebanon. There are several going by this name, all brothers or cousins, but the most famous is the one who owns the Palace of Sweets, an art deco building with a shop and café on the ground floor and kitchens on the floors above. The atmosphere in the kitchens is a little more chaotic than at other sweet-makers, but their sweets are very good and in particular their z’nud el-sitt (or ‘lady’s wrists’). I love the name even though I don’t particularly see the resemblance between that part of a lady’s anatomy and the sweet itself. Still, they are perfectly scrumptious and fairly simple to make once you have mastered the trick of rolling filo pastry over the squidgy cream. In the shop, they are garnished with orange blossom jam and more cream, both adding to the sinfulness of the sweet but making it even more irresistible! You can be relatively virtuous, however, and serve them without the jam and extra cream, which is what I do.
Serves 4–6
Twice the amount of homemade kaymak
1 × 400g packet filo pastry
125g unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
Make the homemade kaymak following the instructions and leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), gas mark 4.
Lay one sheet of filo on your work surface. Brush with butter and cut in half lengthways. Place 2 tablespoons kaymak in a fat line at the top end nearest to you, leaving 1.5cm (½in) free at the top and about 2cm (¾in) free at the edges. Fold the sides over to make a long strip. Brush with butter, then fold the top over the filling and roll into a neat fattish cylinder, brushing with butter every two or three folds. Brush with butter all over and place, loose side down, on a non-stick baking sheet. Make the remaining rolls in the same way until you have used up both filo and cream filling.
You can bake the rolls in a preheated oven for 15–20 minutes, or until crisp and golden brown all over then pour the syrup over them. Or you can fry them as they are traditionally but if you do, scoop them out of the oil once crisp and golden and drop them in the syrup. Turn them over a few times and remove with a slotted spoon onto a serving platter. Serve immediately.
Kellage
The most important time for sweets in the Islamic world is during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast all day and feast all night. Throughout that month and during the feast that follows, people eat and offer vast quantities of sweets and, as a result, many sweet-makers expand their operations, often onto the pavement outside their shops. What I remember most from that month is not so much the sweet-makers’ street operations but rather the haunting sound of the tabbal (drum beater) as he went round our neighbourhood just before dawn, beating his drum to rouse people for their last meal before the day’s fast began. It is very rare to hear this sound nowadays – I guess people rely on their mobiles to wake them up! But the street ‘kitchens’ are still there and one of the typical Ramadan sweets is kellage, known in Turkey as gullaç. The word describes both the large round sheets of pastry (about 50cm/20in in diameter), like very thin communion wafer, and the sweet that is made with them. The sheets are made by pouring a thin batter over a saj (concave hotplate), letting the excess slide off to leave a wafer-thin layer on the hotplate. The saj is then moved over different gas fires, starting with a very hot one and finishing with a lower flame, until the batter is cooked, at which point it is peeled off and laid over a large cloth. And because the sheets of pastry are dry, they last quite a long time.
The basic sheets of pastry may be made in the same way in Lebanon and Turkey, but the way they are used is very different. In Turkey, the sheets are dipped in sweetened milk, then layered in a dish and sprinkled with walnuts, pistachios and pomegranate seeds to serve as a kind of soggy pie. I have yet to acquire a taste for it, but I love the fried Lebanese version where the sheets are softened by brushing them with milk and wrapped around qashtah (clotted cream) into squares that are fried then dipped in sugar syrup. You can have the same pastries unfried, but they are just as soggy and slippery as the Turkish version. During Ramadan many Lebanese sweet-makers fry kellage to order in the fryers outside their shops and I love seeing them in action. I can spend ages watching the squares of pastry sink into the oil, then slowly surface again, like fish rising to gobble up flies.
Serves 4
8 round sheets of kellage pastry
Small bowl of full-cream organic milk
200g (7oz) qashtah (clotted cream)
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
Lay one kellage sheet on your work surface and brush with milk. Fold in the sides of the circle to make a rectangle measuring about 15 × 20cm (6 × 8in), brushing the folds with more milk if they are too dry.
Place one rounded tablespoon of qashtah in the middle of the rectangle, spreading it out slightly, then fold over the long sides first, followed by the shorter ones, to make a smaller rectangle measuring about 6 × 10cm (2½ × 4in). Prepare and fill the other seven sheets in the same way and set aside.
Pour enough vegetable oil to deep fry into a large, deep-sided frying pan and place over a medium heat. To test whether the oil is hot enough, dip in a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Drop in as many pastries as will fit comfortably in the pan and fry until lightly golden on both sides. Remove each pastry with a slotted spoon and drop into the sugar syrup. Turn over a couple of times in the syrup then lift onto a serving platter. Serve at room temperature.
Baklava
Baklava is a generic term describing a whole range of sweets from different parts of the Levant. One of two main types is kol wa shkor (translated as ‘eat and be grateful’), made with multiple layers of filo pastry and filled with nuts. Kol wa shkor come in different shapes, ranging from fingers to small squares to tiny ‘baskets’. The other main type of baklava is made with ‘hair’ pastry (because the very thin long strands of pastry look like hair – see here) and is again filled with nuts but shaped into cylinders, squares or tiny bird’s nests. Turkish baklava is different from the Lebanese/Syrian variety – bigger and softer and without much fragrance as the Turks don’t use fragrant waters in their sugar syrup.
Güllüoğlu in Istanbul was the first baklava-maker I ever visited; I was taken there by my great friend Nevin Halıcı, author of the classic and indispensable Turkish Cookbook. The kitchens at Güllüoğlu are on several floors of a modern building in Karakoy. The first floor is where the sheets of yufka (Turkish filo – see here) are rolled out over beautiful white marble table tops into the biggest, thinnest sheets imaginable. The room is shrouded in a cloud of cornflour, which the bakers use to stop the dough from sticking. It is here that Nadir Güllüoğlu, the flamboyant owner who shows us around, gives his first stock performance of the morning to demonstrate how thin the sheets are. He asks one of his men to hold one up and asks another to place a newspaper behind it. He beams when we marvel at how easily we can read the small print through the yufka. He then asks for the yufka to be backlit, and instructs his men to start a Thai puppet show behind the sheet, which makes for a very amusing spectacle.
Nadir Bey then leads us to where a group of men are making the baklava, some filling triangles with nuts and kaymak (Turkish clotted cream), some making tiny rolls filled with pistachios, and others layering the sheets of dough with nuts before cutting them into rectangles or squares. Whatever activity they are engaged in, their movements are quick, precise and graceful, and totally mesmerising. We then climb to the next floor where the baklava is baked and the sugar syrup prepared. It is the only place where modern technology is used. The gas-fired, brick-lined ovens are similar to those of the big Western bakeries and the syrup is boiled in large gleaming catering kettles. However, as soon as the trays of crisp golden baklava came out of the oven, it is back to manual work. The man watching over the syrup scoops a large ladleful of boiling syrup that he pours over the baklava, which immediately started to bob up and down or, in Nevin’s words, ‘dance’!
When the kitchen tour is over, Nadir Bey invites us back to his office for a tasting. I have to admit that I much prefer Syrian/Lebanese baklava; it is drier and crunchier. But when Turkish baklava is straight out of the oven, it is almost as good, especially if you have it the way Nadir Bey tells you to – stabbing the baklava with your fork then lifting and biting into it upside down. He urged us to listen for the crunch – the sign of a perfect, fresh baklava. I never tire of this part of his performance, especially if he is serving the baklava filled with nuts and melting cream, which makes a wonderful counterpoint to the crisp pastry, everything blending together in the mouth in the most luxurious way. No other sweet-maker I have been to puts on such a show, but for a really dramatic ambience there is no better place to visit than the baklava kitchens of I˙mam Çağdaş in Gaziantep (see here). Everything and everyone is shrouded in white dust, including the old owner, who still wears the traditional serwal (trousers that are very baggy to the knees, then skin tight at the calves and ankles), adding to the rather medieval atmosphere, which is reinforced by the wood-fired oven in the baking room.
The recipe below is for the classic diamond-shaped baklava, but you can also use it to make rolled fingers. First cut the filo pastry in half lengthways, to create strips measuring 9 × 32cm (3½ × 13in). Lay six strips one over the other, brushing each with melted butter. Spread half of the nut filling, in a thin raised line, down the length of the pastry and near the edges, and roll into a thin sausage. Cut the roll into 4cm (1½in) pieces and arrange on a greased baking sheet. Do the rest in the same way then bake and add syrup as below.
Serves 4–6
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
12 sheets of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (measuring 18 × 32cm/7 × 13in)
½ quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
For the filling
200g (7oz) shelled walnuts (or almonds, pine nuts, pistachios or cashews), finely ground
100g (3½oz) golden caster sugar
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp orange blossom water
1 tbsp rose water
Baking dish measuring about 18 × 32cm (7 × 13in) and 3cm (1¼in) deep
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F), gas mark 6, and grease the baking dish with a little butter.
To make the filling, put the nuts in a mixing bowl, add the sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom and rose water and mix well.
Spread one sheet of filo pastry over the bottom of the baking dish. (Keep the other sheets covered with cling film and a clean tea towel to stop them from drying out.) Brush with melted butter and lay another sheet over it. Brush with more melted butter and lay over another four sheets, brushing each with butter, until you have six layers of filo pastry.
Spread the nut filling evenly over the pastry and cover with six more layers of filo, making sure you brush each with melted butter. Pour any leftover butter over the pastry and cut into either diamonds, each side measuring 5cm (2in), or thin rectangles about 5cm (2in) long and 2cm (¾in) wide.
Bake for 15–20 minutes or until crisp and golden. Take out of the oven and let it sit for a minute or so, then pour the cooled syrup all over the pastry. Serve at room temperature. If you can resist it for that long, baklava will keep for a few days if stored in an airtight container.
Sweet Pistachio Pie
BALLURIYEH
Most sweet-makers in Turkey still work by hand, and if you visit their kitchens you will see battalions of men rolling out pastry in one room or filling and shaping the different sweets in another. In Syria and Lebanon, on the other hand, they seem to have become more mechanised, using ingenious machines to roll out the pastry. One man works the machine while another prepares stacks of small, thick discs of dough, each liberally sprinkled with cornflour to stop the dough from sticking as it’s being rolled out. The stacks are placed one after the other underneath a roller that goes back and forth over the stack, flattening and widening it with each motion. In between each movement, the man in charge rotates the stack slightly so that the sheets come out in a perfect circle or oval, depending on what they are being used for. When the sheets have expanded to the desired size, they are rolled around a wooden rolling pin and passed to a young apprentice who takes them to the men shaping the baklava.
The other pastry that is essential for baklava is sha’r or ‘hair’ pastry, so called because the pastry is in long thin strands. It is used in two of my favourite types of baklava, balluriyeh (from ballur, meaning ‘light’ because the pastry remains white) and borma (meaning ‘turned’ in Arabic because the pastry is rolled around the nuts in the shape of a cylinder). The Arab version of borma is made in long fat rolls filled with whole pistachios and then fried, while the Turkish version is made into thinner rolls that are filled with ground pistachios and baked. The frying is also partly mechanised, with trays of borma slotted onto an electric rack that is lowered into a deep-fryer filled with hot oil and lifted out, at the flick of a switch, when the pastries are done. The sweet-maker uses large pincers – the trays are obviously too hot to handle – to move the trays from the frying rack to a vat of sugar syrup into which the trays are then lowered to soak the pastries. Once they have absorbed enough syrup, the trays are removed and slotted onto yet another rack for the excess syrup and oil to drain away, leaving the borma crisp and scrumptious. You can make this kind of borma at home, deep-frying them in the same way as the sweets in the previous recipes, but it is much easier to make balluriyeh – the baked version.
Serves 6
750g (1lb 10oz) raw shelled pistachios, very coarsely ground
200g (7oz) golden caster sugar
3 tbsp rose water
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted
250g (9oz) hair pastry
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
Baking dish measuring about 22 × 38cm (8½ × 15in) and 4cm (1½in) deep
Put the pistachios, sugar and rose water in a mixing bowl and mix well.
Pour half the melted butter into the baking dish and spread all over the bottom. Spread half the hair pastry evenly all over the butter, pressing down with your hands to make sure the pastry forms an even layer with no gaps anywhere. Cover with an even layer of the pistachio filling and another of hair pastry, pressing down with your hands once again to make sure it is the same level throughout. Pour the remaining melted butter all over the pastry.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350°F), gas mark 4.
Bake the balluriyeh in the oven for 20 minutes or until barely coloured. Pour the syrup all over, then wait for a few minutes before cutting into 4–5cm (1½–2in) squares, or even smaller if you want them to be very dainty, then serve at room temperature. Balluriyeh will last at least two weeks if stored in a sealed container.
Candyfloss
GHAZL EL-BANAT
Ghazl el-banat, basically candyfloss, means ‘to flirt with the girls’ in Arabic. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it was named after a caramel known as sukkar banat (meaning ‘sugar of young girls’ and used like wax to remove unwanted hair on the legs and arms) because the same caramel is used for the candyfloss. My mother and aunt used to make it for us when we were teenagers and I would always nab some to eat before they started the painful process of laying it on our skin and yanking it off with a million hairs attached to it. Watching ghazl el-banat being made at Pistache d’Alep, Aleppo’s best sweet-maker, always brings back those long-gone ‘beauty’ days.
The set-up for ghazl el-banat, as for most other Levantine sweets, is fairly simple: a gas burner to boil the caramel; a thick marble slab for stretching it out; a gas-fired drum to toast the flour (an essential ingredient for the miraculous transformation of the caramel into a million sweet wisps); and a square table with raised edges, a little like a shallow box, for the final step of incorporating the flour into the caramel. When the caramel has reached the soft-ball stage, it is poured onto the greased marble slab and using a spatula – it is far too hot to touch – the master sweet-maker picks it up to stretch and fold it. He repeats this action again and again until the caramel starts to cool. He then sets the spatula aside and, with his hands (the caramel is still hot but sweet-makers all seem to have asbestos hands), he stretches and folds it, again and again – as it gets too hot for him to carry on handling it, another sweet-maker takes over and when it becomes too hot for him, he passes it back to the master – until the caramel turns a lustrous white and firms up without losing its malleability.
Then the master, who has a wondrous girth from sampling what he makes, prods the caramel to make sure it is ready for the next stage. When he signals that it is, his team all slap their hands together and call a few more sweet-makers to join them for some serious pulling and stretching. The master shapes the caramel into a fat ring and transfers it to the table, which is covered in toasted flour. The men take their place around the table and, with their hands, shovel some of the flour over the caramel. They then cup their hands over the part of the ring closest to them, look at each other and shout ‘Allah Akbar!’ (‘God is Great!’), invoking Him to give them strength and His blessing, before they start stretching the ring while slowly rotating it. When the ring has widened, the master twists it into a figure of eight, then folds it into two rings, one on top of the other. The men shovel more flour onto the caramel and pull again, repeating the process again and again until the ring becomes very large and the caramel starts separating into strands, fat ones at first, then thinner and thinner until the ring is the size of the table and made up of a million feathery white strands.
By then, the men are all sweating profusely and a young apprentice goes round the table dabbing their foreheads with a cloth so that the sweat does not fall onto the candyfloss. They finally stop, exhausted, and take a breath while the master breaks the candyfloss into sections, giving one to each. The young apprentice brings in a tray of whole pistachio nuts dusted with icing sugar which he places on a raised platform in the centre of the table, then he sets a round metal tray at each corner. Each man picks up some candyfloss, piles a handful of pistachios in the centre and rolls the candyfloss over the pistachios, chopping off the straggly strands with the side of his hand to form a shimmering, jewel-like ball that he lays on the tray nearest to him. Sometimes they make a truly luxurious version, using a mixture of pistachios and clotted cream, but only as a special order. I was fortunate enough to be there one day when they were making these – it is truly a spectacular combination of ingredients.
I never knew it took such relentless effort to produce these balls of fluff that disappear almost as soon as you put them in your mouth. And I never suspected that the caramel Levantine women use as a beauty aid could be so miraculously transformed. What is interesting, though, is that the commercially produced ghazl has a long shelf life needing no refrigeration, while the hand-made version lasts only two or three days. If you forget it as I did once, you will find the gorgeous white balls collapsed into sticky puddles.
The Turkish version, which is called pişmaniye, is made in the same way except that the caramel is cooked to a darker stage. There is also an Iranian version, called pashmak, as well as an Asian variety known as dragon-beard candy. The latter is made in the same way but in smaller quantities – by sweet-makers on the street – using rice instead of wheat flour and filling the balls with ground peanuts instead of whole pistachios. I thought it would be interesting to explain the process here, but decided against giving a recipe as it is definitely not a sweet you can make at home without a tremendous amount of effort. You are better off buying it from a good sweet-maker and enjoying it all the more because you know how it is made.
Round Fritters
’UWWAMAT
Whenever I am in Damascus I make sure I visit Souk el-Tanabel (Souk of the Lazy People), not only because I love the displays of vegetables prepared by women in their homes during the night so that they are very fresh in the shops the next morning, but also because of a sweets stall where the sweet-maker displays a most extraordinary technique for making ’uwwamat. Standing a few feet away from a gigantic frying pan, he takes a chunk of dough in his left hand and a small spoon in his right which he dips in water before scooping up a little of the dough and flicking it into the hot oil. He never misses and the soft dough never sticks to the spoon. He is there every morning and every evening, making hundreds of these small round fritters, and whenever I am there, I stand and watch, fascinated by his technique. Most other ’uwwamat makers simply stand over their frying pan dropping the dough straight into it. I had never seen anyone flicking it the way he does. Not only is he masterful but his fritters are also exquisite and always crisp as he seems to sell them as soon as he makes them. (These are best when eaten straight after they have been fried.) And he clearly knows he is the best because written in big letters at the back of his stall is a sign proclaiming malak al-’uwwamat – ‘king of round fritters’!
Serves 4–6
150g (5oz) unbleached plain flour
300g (11oz) plain yoghurt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Vegetable oil for frying
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
Put the flour in a mixing bowl. Add the yoghurt and bicarbonate of soda and whisk until you have a smooth batter. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 45 minutes.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a large, deep-sided frying pan to deep-fry the fritters, and place over a medium heat. To test whether the oil is really hot, add a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Dip a rounded dessertspoon in a little cold oil, fill it with batter and drop this ball of batter into the hot oil. Drop in as many balls as will fit comfortably in the pan and fry them, stirring to brown them evenly, until golden all over.
Remove with a slotted spoon onto a double layer of kitchen paper to drain off some of the oil before dropping them into the syrup. Turn them in the syrup a few times and transfer to a serving dish. Make the rest of the fritters and serve at room temperature.
Pistachio Cookies with a Sweet Dip
KARABIJ HALAB MA’ NATEF
One sweet that I remember from when my family went to the mezze restaurant in Zahleh, and which we used to buy on the bridge over the Berdawni river, was a hard white nougat with a strong taste of mastic; and every time I eat natef, a lustrous white dip, I think of that sweet, wondering if it was made with soapwort (see here). I haven’t yet found out as the sweet seems to have disappeared, but I suspect it may have been made with egg white like other nougat confections. As for soapwort, it is an unlikely ingredient to be used in an edible confection given that it is a natural soap that was traditionally used to wash carpets. When the soapwort roots are boiled, the saponin seeps into the water that can then be whisked into a brilliant white foam, something you may find hard to believe as you look into the boiling brown water. And whenever I prepare natef, I have a moment’s doubt, wondering if the water will actually whip up into a white foam. Fortunately it always does, and when you add the sugar syrup, the foam turns into a lovely meringue-like sweet dip that is just as good on its own as with the pistachio (in Lebanon) or walnut (in Syria) cookies it is normally served with. In Lebanon, the cookies are served at room temperature, while their Syrian counterparts are served warm and the dip sprinkled with a little ground cinnamon.
Makes about 25 cookies
350g (12oz) semolina
40g (1½oz) unbleached plain flour
40g (1½oz) golden caster sugar
¼ tsp (⅛ × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
150g (5oz) unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp orange blossom water
3 tbsp rose water
For the filling
175g (6oz) raw shelled pistachios (or walnuts if you want to make this the Aleppine way), ground medium-fine
50g (2oz) golden caster sugar
½ tbsp rose water
½ tbsp orange blossom water
For the natef
60g (2oz) soapwort root (see here)
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
First make the natef. Rinse the soapwort under cold water to rinse off any soil that may be still clinging to it. Put in a saucepan with 600ml (1 pint) of water, place over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Watch the soapwort as it comes to the boil as it will foam up and may boil over. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by three-quarters. You should be left with 150ml (5fl oz) of brown water.
Strain the soapwort liquid into a large mixing bowl and, using a strong electric beater, whisk until the brown water has become a white, rather shiny foam – scarcely believable but true. The miraculous transformation is due to the saponin in the soapwort (see the introduction). Gradually add the sugar syrup to the foam while the beater is still whisking until you have a fluffy, stretchy dip/sauce. Transfer to a bowl, cover with cling film and refrigerate while you make the cookies.
Mix the semolina, flour, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add the softened butter and, with your fingertips, work it into the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Add the orange blossom and rose water and knead until the pastry is smooth and elastic. Cover with a tea towel that is wet but not wringing and leave to rest in a cool place for 1½ hours.
Meanwhile, make the filling for the cookies. Mix the ground pistachios (or walnuts) and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the rose and orange blossom water and mix well before setting aside.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.
Pinch off a small piece of dough and knead it into a ball the size of a walnut. Place it in the palm of one hand and flatten it with the index and middle fingers of your other hand – it needs to be thin but not so thin as to tear when you fold it over the filling.
Place 1 teaspoon of filling in a line down the middle of the dough, leaving the ends clear, and start pinching the edges of the dough together from one end to the other to close it over the filling. Carefully shape the filled pastry into a domed finger, leaving the pinched side on the bottom. Place the moulded cookie on a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Fill and shape the remaining dough in the same way. You should end up with about 25 cookies, each measuring about 8cm (3in) long and 2cm (¾in) high.
Bake the cookies for 12–15 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven onto a wire rack to allow to cool, then serve with the natef. Kept in an airtight container, these cookies will last for a couple of weeks.
Walnut Cookies
MA’MUL BIL-JOZ
These are the Lebanese Easter cookies par excellence. My mother and grandmother made them by the dozen for two or three days leading up to Easter. Part of the yield was kept at home for us to eat or offer our guests while the other part was sent to friends and neighbours to share in the celebrations. Easter is more important than Christmas for Lebanese Christians. Ma’mul is also made in large quantities by Muslims during Ramadan along with qrass bil-tamr. If you don’t have a tabe’, or special mould for shaping the cookies, you can use a tea strainer instead, or simply mould them by hand, using tweezers or a fork to create the pattern on top. Traditionally the moulds are carved by hand out of one block of wood. If you walk down Straight Street in Damascus, there is one stretch that is the kitchen corner and there is one particular shop that I like to call the Syrian Divertimenti. They sell anything and everything to do with kitchens in there, both for the home and for restaurants with some gigantic utensils that seem to be made locally; and in one corner sits a young man carving these moulds. The oval shape is for the pistachio-filled pastry. The round shape with a pointed well inside is for the walnut-filled ones and the shallow round one is for the dates. The carving inside is quite intricate with deep grooves so that the pattern does not get lost during baking. You can also buy moulded plastic ones nowadays but I would never use those and am lucky enough to have my mother’s moulds from way way back. She gave them to me when I moved to London and she’d already had them from when she was married.
Makes about 30 cookies
350g (12oz) semolina
40g (1½oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
40g (1½oz) golden caster sugar
¼ tsp (⅛ × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
150g (5oz) unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp orange blossom water
3 tbsp rose water
Icing sugar for dusting
For the filling
175g (6oz) shelled walnuts, ground medium-fine
50g (2oz) golden caster sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tbsp rose water
½ tbsp orange blossom water
Tabe’ or ma’mul mould (optional)
Mix the semolina, flour, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add the softened butter and, with your fingertips, work it into the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Add the orange blossom and rose water and knead until the pastry is smooth and elastic. If you find the pastry a bit stiff, add a little more rose water or just plain water. Roll into a ball, then place in a clean, lightly floured bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to rest in a cool place for 1½ hours.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix the ground walnuts with the sugar and cinnamon in a mixing bowl, Add the rose and orange blossom water and mix well, then set aside.
When the dough has finished resting, preheat the oven to 200ºC (400°F), gas mark 6.
Pinch off a small piece of dough and roll into a ball the size of a walnut. Place it in the palm of one hand and, with the index finger of your other hand, burrow into it to form a hollow cone – being careful not to pierce the bottom – with walls about 5mm (¼in) thick. Fill the pastry shell with 1 teaspoon of the walnut filling and pinch the dough together to close it over the filling.
Carefully shape the filled pastry into a ball and lightly press into the tabe’, leaving the pinched side on top so that when you invert the cookie, it is on the bottom. Invert the mould over the fingertips of your other hand and tap it lightly against your work surface to release it onto your hand. Slide the moulded cookie onto a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Fill and shape the remaining dough in the same way. You may have to scrape the inside of the mould every now and then, in case some pastry has stuck to it. You should end up with about 30 pastries.
Bake the cookies for 12–15 minutes or until crisp on top, like shortbread, but not browned. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack. Allow to cool for a few minutes then sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve immediately or store in airtight containers to serve later. These cookies will keep for a couple of weeks.
Date Cookies
Q’RASS BIL-TAMR
The pastry for these is the same as the one for ma’mul except the filling is made with dates and the mould or tabe’ used is flat and round and slightly wider. You could otherwise mould these by hand, although they won’t look as attractive.
Makes about 30 cookies
350g (12oz) semolina
40g (1½oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
40g (1½oz) golden caster sugar
¼ tsp (⅛ × 7g sachet) fast-action yeast
150g (5oz) unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp orange blossom water
3 tbsp rose water
Icing sugar for dusting
For the filling
350g (12oz) date paste
½ tsp ground cinnamon
30g (1oz) unsalted butter, melted
Tabe’ or qrass bil-tamr mould (optional)
Mix the semolina, flour, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add the softened butter and, with your fingertips, work it into the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Add the orange blossom and rose water and knead until the pastry is smooth and elastic. If you find the pastry a bit stiff, add a little more rose water or just plain water. Roll into a ball, then place in a clean, lightly floured bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to rest in a cool place for 1½ hours.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix the date paste with the ground cinnamon and the melted butter. It will take a little kneading to blend the ingredients together. Then divide the paste into 28–30 little pieces that you then roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Shape each ball into a small disc that is the size of the grooved circle inside the mould (if using) which should be about 3½cm (1½in).
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425°F), gas mark 7.
Divide the dough into the same number of date discs and flatten each piece into a circle about 1.5cm (⅝in) wider than a date disc. Put each date disc in the middle of each circle of pastry, and fold the pastry over the disc. Gently shape into a circle that is slightly smaller than the mould. Put the filled cookie, seam side uppermost, into the mould and gently press to fit the mould and get the impression. Tap the top part of the mould against your work surface, with your hand underneath to catch the cookie as it drops out. Slide onto a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat).
Bake like the ma’mul, for about 15 minutes, but leaving them a little longer in the oven so that they turn golden. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Serve at once or store in an airtight container to serve later. They will keep for up to two weeks although they are at their best in the first few days.
Sesame Cookies
BARAZIQ
My father always brought us back edible gifts when he returned from his business trips. When he went to Iraq, we’d get huge wicker baskets filled with dates; if it was Damascus, we’d get boxes of baraziq. The cookies were light and crumbly, covered with sesame seeds on one side and flaked pistachios on the other. My father bought them from what was the best sweet-maker in Damascus, M’hanna in Marjah Square – a huge area that is the city’s equivalent of Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square. M’hanna is still there but no longer producing the delicious sweets of my childhood. For that taste and quality I go to Semiramis/Rose de Damas, who have yet to allow me into their kitchens! The lovely owners of Pistache d’Alep have allowed me into theirs, however. Indeed, I spent a couple of hours there one day trying to master the art of making baraziq. I watched as young men worked in a chain around a spotless big table. At one end, two men divided the pastry into tiny nuggets, which they threw to the two men at the centre of the table who picked up the nuggets, one in each hand, and pressed on both simultaneously to flatten them into small discs. They then dipped these into pistachios on one side and toasted sesame seeds on the other before laying them on a baking sheet, pistachio side down, and starting on the next batch. When the baking sheet was full, a young apprentice picked it up and slid it onto a rack; and when the rack was full, he wheeled it over to the oven and slid the trays inside to bake. While the baklava-makers work relatively slowly because of the delicate pastry (see here), the baraziq makers are like fast robots, by contrast, repeating the same actions again and again at top speed and with incredible precision. They need to work fast because of the high butter content in the pastry. They must have a secret that they won’t share because my cookies are never as good as theirs, but it gives me pleasure to make them at home, wishing that my father were still alive so he could taste his daughter’s handiwork.
Makes 18–20 small cookies or six large ones
4 tbsp golden caster sugar
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 medium-sized organic egg
½ tsp white wine vinegar
150g (5oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
Pinch of sea salt
1⁄3 tsp baking powder
To garnish
100g (3½oz) sesame seeds, toasted until lightly golden
100g (3½oz) slivered pistachio nuts
Put the sugar and softened butter in a mixing bowl and work together with a wooden spoon until completely blended. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend with your hand until you have a soft dough. If it is too soft to work with immediately, refrigerate for 1 hour. Divide the dough into 18–20 portions to make small baraziq or six portions to make larger ones.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350°F), gas mark 4, and line a large baking sheet with baking paper or a silicone mat, or use a non-stick baking sheet.
Shape each ball of dough with your hands until you have quite a thin disc, about 7cm (2¾in) wide to make the small cookies, and place on a large platter. Put the sesame seeds on one plate and the slivered pistachios on another. When you have shaped all the discs, dip each in the pistachios on one side and the toasted sesame seeds on the other, making sure it is well coated in the seeds. Place on the baking sheet with the nuts side down.
Bake for 25–35 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving. Baraziq will keep for up to two weeks in an airtight container.
Iranian Almond Pastries
GHOTÂB
The Persian word sanbuseh encompasses a whole range of small stuffed pastries, both savoury and sweet. The word is at the origin of the Arab sambusak, which describes only savoury pastries, as well as the Indian samosa and the North African samsa, tiny sweet pastry triangles filled with almond paste. Oddly enough, sanbuseh are no longer that common in Iran and even these pastries, which would have been called sanbuseh a few centuries ago, have a different Persian name now. I like to think of them as the Iranian precursor to the Moroccan cornes de gazelle, based on the same principle of encasing almond paste in very thin pastry to make crescents. The flavour in the Iranian version is headier because of the cardamom, although it lacks the fragrance of the orange blossom water used in the North African version. The Moroccan pastries are also baked whereas the Iranian ones are fried.
Makes about 35 pastries
150g (5oz) unsalted butter, softened
150g (5oz) plain yoghurt (preferably goat’s)
2 large organic egg yolks
225g (8oz) unbleached plain flour, plus extra for dusting
2⁄3 tsp baking powder
Vegetable oil for frying
For the filling
75g (2½oz) icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
150g (5oz) ground almonds
1¼ tsp ground cardamom, plus extra for dusting
8cm (3in) diameter pastry cutter
Put the butter, yoghurt and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk together until very creamy. Mix the flour and baking powder before gradually adding them to the yoghurt and butter mixture. Knead in the bowl until you have a rough dough.
Dust your work surface with a little flour and transfer the dough to it. Knead until you have a smooth dough, then shape into a ball and place in a clean, lightly floured bowl. Cover with cling film and let the dough rise for 2½ hours.
Meanwhile, mix the filling ingredients together.
Divide the risen dough in two and shape them each into a ball. Place one under a clean, damp tea towel and roll out the other until quite thin but not so thin as it could risk tearing or bursting during frying. Use the pastry cutter to cut out as many circles as you can. Place 2 teaspoons of filling in the middle of each circle of dough. Dampen the edges and close the pastry around the filling to form a semicircle, pressing on the edges to seal them, then bend the ends around to shape into a crescent. Repeat until all the dough and filling have been used up, making about 35 pastries in total.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a large, deep-sided frying pan to deep-fry the pastries. To test whether the oil is hot enough, dip in a small piece of bread; if the oil bubbles around it, it is ready. Lower the pastries into the hot oil and fry until golden all over. Remove with a slotted spoon onto several layers of kitchen paper to drain the excess oil.
Sift some icing sugar and a pinch of ground cardamom into a shallow bowl, then dip the fried pastries in the sugar, turning them over to coat evenly. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Turkish Semolina Cake
REVANI
Here is the Turkish version of the Lebanese nammurah, a simpler cake with a plainer syrup. The Turks don’t use rose or orange blossom water in their syrup, unlike the other countries of the Levant, and the syrup is thinner too. Still, the cake is easy and quick to make and you can vary it by adding spices such as saffron or cardamom to the mixture to give it an interesting flavour.
Serves 4–6
Unsalted butter for greasing
100g (3½oz) golden caster sugar
6 medium-sized organic eggs
100g (3½oz) self-raising flour
100g (3½oz) semolina
1 quantity of Turkish sugar syrup
Baking dish measuring 25cm (10in) in diameter and 4cm (1½in) deep
Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350°C), gas mark 4, and grease the baking dish with a little butter.
Put the sugar and eggs in a mixing bowl and whisk together until creamy and well blended. Combine the flours in another bowl, then add to the sugar and egg mixture and mix in well.
Spoon the batter into the baking dish, spreading it evenly across the dish. Bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes or until golden and springy to the touch.
Take out of the oven (leaving it on) and cut the revani into medium-sized squares (reserving any small rounded edges for eating before serving). Pour the syrup all over and return to the oven for a minute or two. Then remove and let the cake sit for a couple of hours to cool and soak up the syrup. Serve at room temperature topped with a little kaymak (Turkish clotted cream) or standard clotted cream.
Halva
I was quite surprised to discover that natef is an essential ingredient in halva. Not that I knew how the genuine article was made, but because of its crumbly texture I assumed that the sesame seeds were ground then mixed with sugar syrup or honey. I did in fact make halva once this way, using a recipe from Leslie Kenton’s 1980s bestseller Raw Energy. She suggested crushing the sesame seeds in a food processor then mixing them with honey. I nearly broke my food processor trying to do this. The hull on the tiny seeds is very hard and I did not learn until much later that they need to be soaked before they can be hulled and crushed, an important piece of information that Ms Kenton omitted to mention! The resulting halva was nothing like the one I was familiar with.
Then one day I was walking through the old souks of Aleppo with a friend who knew everyone there and he introduced me to Omar Akesh, halva-maker extraordinaire. Omar’s large, rather medieval kitchens are hidden behind the small shop where he sells his tahini and halva. The kitchens occupy two floors connected by an ingenious gully system. On the upper floor, toasted sesame seeds are soaked in large stone troughs, then hulled and pressed to extract the tahini, which is channelled into the gully to drop into big vats on the ground floor. There the tahini is either packed into plastic containers to be sold in the shop or transferred to a deep metal-lined trough where it is mixed with natef (made in a machine that looks like a giant ice-cream maker) and churned into halva. The tahini is mixed with the natef using a massive electrically operated churner inside the trough. While the churner rotates, the halva-maker uses a wooden paddle to scrape the halva off the blades and back into the trough. He then stops the churner and attaches a gigantic wooden pestle (like those used to beat ice cream – see here) to a pulley high above the trough. Then, at the flick of another switch, the pestle starts beating down on the halva, with the halva-maker guiding it to reach every part of the mixture. When the halva reaches the right consistency, he transfers it to a number of very large, rather beautiful metal bowls with round bottoms. Holding a bowl in one hand, he kneads the halva with his free hand, rocking the bowl back and forth, until the halva becomes smooth. He then divides the mixture, weighing it and packing it into plastic boxes that are sold in the shop alongside the tahini.
The two classic types of halva are plain or mixed with pistachio nuts. Omar also makes one with chocolate that I don’t much care for. I had never eaten freshly made halva until I met him and it was a revelation, far better than any I had had before and less cloying. I can’t promise that the recipe below will produce as good a halva as his, but it is the nearest you will get to making your own halva using the right method!
Makes 1kg (2lb 2oz)
500g (1lb 1oz) tahini
1 quantity of natef
Sunflower oil for greasing
Two 500g (1lb 1oz) round or rectangular plastic containers
Pour the tahini into a large mixing bowl and add the natef. Then, using a wooden paddle, mix well, lifting the mixture every now and then – you are trying to emulate the churning action of the machine (see introduction). You could otherwise use a food mixer with the kneading attachment. Once the two are properly blended and you have a mixture that is slightly textured, gently beat it with a large pestle, for a few minutes, then transfer to a clean mixing bowl.
Grease your hands with a little sunflower oil and knead the mixture very lightly. Transfer to the plastic containers – the classic shape is round – and press on the halva with your hands. Let it sit in a cool place until it hardens. Serve on its own or with pita bread. We used to make halva sandwiches as a sweet treat when we were young.
Cream Triangles
SH’AYBIYATT
If you are going to make these delicious crisp pastries using Arab-style clotted cream, you will need to make the cream the day before. You’ll also need to use the widest pan possible for your hob so as to maximise the amount of skin formed on top, which will be the cream. I have not yet been able to buy proper qashtah in London and I definitely don’t advise using the one sold in tins. A friend once taught me to make a fast version by boiling the milk and cream with soft white breadcrumbs; others make it with cornflour. I don’t really like either version and prefer to use the walnut filling if I don’t have time to make the cream. In Turkey, they fill them with both ground pistachios and kaymak (which is their version of qashtah).
Makes 24
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted
16 sheets of Greek or Turkish filo pastry (measuring 28 × 43cm/11 × 17in)
1 quantity of Lebanese sugar syrup
For the clotted cream (makes about 140g/5oz)
1 litre (1¾ pints) full-cream organic milk
300ml (½ pint) double cream
For the walnut filling
75g (2½oz) shelled walnuts, ground medium-fine
1 scant tbsp golden caster sugar
¼ scant tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp orange blossom water
½ tsp rose water
To make the clotted cream (if using as a filling), pour the milk and cream into a wide, shallow saucepan and put over a low heat. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to very low and leave to simmer for 1½–2 hours.
Remove the pan from the heat and cover with a lid. Let it sit undisturbed for about 6 hours, then place in the fridge and leave overnight. Skim off the thick skin and discard the leftover liquid.
To make the walnut filling (if using), put the ground nuts in a mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F), gas mark 6.
Use a little of the melted butter to grease a large baking sheet. Then lay one sheet of filo pasty on your work surface and brush with a little melted butter. Lay another sheet over it, brushing it with butter, followed by another two layers, brushing each with butter.
Cut the layered sheets into 9cm (3½in) squares. Separate one square and spread a heaped teaspoon of cream or walnut filling in the middle, leaving the edges clear. Fold the pastry over the filling to make a triangle and press the edges together. Brush the top and bottom with butter and place on the baking sheet. Continue making the rest of the triangles until you have finished both pastry and filling.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until crisp and golden. Transfer to a serving platter, drizzle the syrup over the pastries and leave to cool. Serve at room temperature.
Turkish Pistachio and Cream Pie
KATMER
Katmer is one of Turkey’s most splendid sweets. Made with incredibly thin pastry encasing a mixture of clotted cream and finely ground pistachios, it is baked until crisp and golden. The resulting pie is delicate and feels extremely light when you eat it even though it clocks in at around 1,000 calories a bite. But don’t let this worry you. If you happen to be in Gaziantep, where katmer originates, you must go to Orkide to sample theirs – it is simply the best. If you want to try your hand at making it yourself, here is a recipe. I have to warn you, though, that homemade katmer is unlikely to be as delicate as that of a master katmer-maker. This is because of the way the dough is stretched. You will be rolling yours out with a rolling pin, while in Gaziantep the katmer-maker stretches the dough after rolling it out by flipping it in the air in a swirling motion. He does this a few times and, with each motion, the dough stretches wider and wider until it is about a metre in diameter, at which stage he slaps it against his marble worktop and gently stretches it further by pulling on the edges. It is unlikely that without any previous experience, you will know how to stretch the dough in this fashion, but you will still be able to achieve a respectable result using a rolling pin. Or even better, you can use filo pastry to make a fast version which is the recipe I give below where I have also changed the size to make mini katmer because they are easier to handle. And in this recipe, I recommend you use supermarket filo because it is thicker and easier to handle unless you are adept at handling the thinner Turkish or Greek brands.
Serves 4
For homemade kaymak
250ml (9fl oz) organic whole milk
50g (2oz) fine semolina
50ml (2fl oz) cream
For the katmer
250g (9oz) finley ground pistachios
125g (4oz) golden caster sugar
½ pack filo pastry (about 200g/7oz)
Put the milk in a saucepan and stir in the semolina and cream. Place over a medium-low heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly to avoid having lumps. Continue stirring once it has come to the boil and boil for another 3–5 minutes until the mixture is thicker than crème fraîche.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425ºF), gas mark 7. Have 2 large non-stick baking sheets to hand or line regular ones with silicone mats or parchment paper.
Cut the filo into 21cm (8in) squares and stack them up under cling film and a clean kitchen towel so that the sheets don’t dry up. Take one square of filo and brush with butter. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons ground pistachios all over, then sprinkle as much sugar as you would like your katmer to be sweet – I use ½ tablespoon but this may not be sweet enough for you. Scatter dollops of cream here and there – don’t overdo the cream – and lift one corner and bring it to the centre to cover part of the filling. Lift the other corners to do the same until you end up with about a 10cm (4in) square. Gently lift onto the baking sheet and make the remaining katmers in the same way. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until crisp and golden. Serve immediately.
Sweet Cheese and Semolina
HALAWET EL-JEBN
Halawet el-jebn is a very interesting sweet, a little like a sweet polenta that is spread thinly and left to set before being served with syrup, either plain or rolled around clotted cream. It is a speciality of the city of Homs, once the seat of the Syrian revolution before it was devastated by regime forces when they bombed many of the city’s neighbourhoods. Bustling, modern and rather grimy, the city has never really interested me, but whenever I drove past it on the way to Lebanon from Aleppo I would stop at a sweet-maker just outside the city to buy halawet el-jebn for my mother. Fortunately, there is also a sweet-maker in Tripoli in northern Lebanon, Halawiyat el-Tom, that specialises in halawet el-jebn and makes an excellent version. They also make a very fine orange blossom jam, which is no longer so easy to find. The jam was once the classic garnish for all creamy or cream-filled sweets. Even though halawet el-jebn is a real sweet-maker’s speciality, it is not so difficult to make at home. Just be sure to soak the cheese long enough and in enough changes of water to get rid of the salty taste.
Serves 4
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter
150g (5oz) semolina
150ml (5fl oz) Lebanese sugar syrup, plus extra for brushing (optional) and to serve
500g (1lb 1oz) akkawi cheese or mozzarella, cut into slices and soaked in several changes of cold water until all the saltiness has gone
For the rolls (optional)
150g (5oz) qashtah (clotted cream), for the filling
1 tbsp coarsely ground raw pistachios, to garnish (optional)
Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, then add the semolina and stir for a few minutes until it has absorbed all the butter. Add the sugar syrup and continue stirring until the mixture is smooth and well blended.
Drain the cheese slices and add to the saucepan. Stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to stop the cheese from sticking, until the cheese is completely melted and the mixture looks like a thick purée.
I like to eat it hot, which is rather tricky because the cheese will stretch for ever, but the classic way to serve halawet el-jebn is to spread the mixture rather thinly on a baking sheet brushed with sugar syrup, dipping your spatula in syrup every now and then so that it doesn’t stick. Then when the halaweh is cool, peel it off and cut it into irregular pieces, which you layer and serve either plain or with clotted cream and more syrup on the side.
Another way to serve halawet el-jebn is to shape it into long rolls filled with clotted cream. Then you cut the roll into pieces about 5cm (2in) long to make one or two bites. Dust the rolls with coarsely ground pistachio nuts and serve chilled.
Fragrant Shortbread Biscuits
GH’RAYBEH
There are many things that I miss about Syria: the lovely people and their charming hospitality, the gorgeous landscapes and fabulous ruins, and most of all Semiramis/Rose de Damas, the best sweet-maker in the whole of the Middle East. Whenever I went to Damascus, I would stock up on the finest and tiniest baklava. I also bought boxes and boxes of tiny baraziq and gh’raybeh, which are basically shortbread although more crumbly than the Western version and fragrant with rose and orange blossom water. Semiramis’s gh’raybeh are undoubtedly the best I have ever eaten. Sadly they were not forthcoming with their recipe, so I had to rely on my mother for the one below. Her biscuits are almost as good as Semiramis’s.
Makes about 36 biscuits
100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4½oz) icing sugar
250g (9oz) fine semolina
2 tbsp orange blossom water
2 tbsp rose water
50g (2oz) raw shelled pistachios
Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F), gas mark 3.
Put the softened butter and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and work together with the back of a wooden spoon until you have a creamy, smooth white paste.
Work in the flour gradually with your hands until it is fully incorporated, then add the orange blossom and rose water and knead until the pastry is soft and smooth.
Pinch off a bit of dough the size of a walnut and roll it into a sausage about 10cm (4in) long and 1.5cm (⅝in) thick. Bring both ends together so that they overlap slightly and flatten the pastry a little. Press a pistachio nut into the pastry where the two ends join and place on a large non-stick baking sheet (or one lined with baking parchment or a silicone mat). Continue shaping the biscuits and adding the pistachios until you have finished the pastry and the nuts; you should end up with about 36.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until cooked but not browned. Leave to cool completely before transferring to a serving platter or an airtight container.
You can shape gh’raybeh differently from the above, either in round biscuits about 5cm (2in) in diameter and 2cm (¾in) thick, each with a slightly depressed centre in which you press an almond or a pistachio nut; or in diamonds 2cm (¾in) thick and with 5cm (2in) sides, each diamond topped with a nut.
Iranian Chickpea Shortbread
NÂN-E NOKHODCHI
This is the Iranian equivalent of gh’raybeh, very crumbly shortbreads that melt in the mouth but made instead with chickpea flour and flavoured with cardamom.
Makes 30
150g (5oz) chickpea flour
75g (2½oz) golden caster sugar
1⁄3 tsp ground cardamom
80g (22⁄3oz) unsalted butter, very soft
plain flour to roll out the shortbreads
Mix the flour, sugar and cardamom in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the butter to the well. Bring in the flour to mix with the butter. You may find it difficult to make the pastry bind at first – it is a very short pastry – but it should come together and if it doesn’t, add a medium egg although the biscuits will not be as crumbly if you do.
Shape the pastry into a ball. Flatten it then roll out to a thickness of about 1cm (½in). Use a 20mm rosette shape cutter to cut the shortbreads and carefully transfer to a non-stick baking sheet or one lined with parchment paper. Put in the refrigerator while you heat the oven to 150ºC (300°F), gas mark 2.
Bake in the preheated oven for 5–7 minutes. Let cool before decorating each with a sliver of pistachio. Serve at room temperature. These shortbreads will keep for at least two weeks if you store them in an airtight container.
Pistachio Ice Cream
BUZA ’ALA FUSTUQ
Even though many sweet-makers produce ice cream, the best is usually to be obtained from specialist ice-cream makers. Hanna Mitri in Beirut, together with Özgüler in Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey and Dimashq in Souk el-Hamidiyeh in Damascus, are my favourites. Hanna’s ice cream is less dense and he has more choice than Özgüler, who offers only pistachio or mastic and makes his, like everyone else in that region, with goat’s milk. Syrian ice cream – which is beaten rather than churned – is also dense but made with cow’s milk and the choice is with or without cream. I don’t remember which ice-cream maker I used to go to when I lived in Beirut. Whoever it was must have been near where we lived, somewhere in Hamra or perhaps in downtown Beirut. If I ever went to Hanna, it would have been when we visited my grandmother because his shop in Achrafiyeh on the Christian side is very near to where she lived, and it is still there 60 years on, although now run by his widow and their son. What I remember clearly is the rectangular biscuit ‘cones’ into which the vendor used to push the thick ice cream until the biscuit bulged, before piling more on top. Fortunately, they still use the same rectangular biscuits and, more importantly, they still make ice cream the same way that Hanna did, in the same tiny space right next door to the equally tiny shop, using the same antiquated equipment that would horrify any European health inspector. Hanna’s widow helps out in the shop, and prepares the ingredients such as picking the pistachios clean and trimming seasonal fruit – they never use artificial flavourings. Her other children and even grandchildren chip in when they can. And for Easter, they make delicate walnut or pistachio cookies (ma’mul) and date cookies (q’rass bil-tamr). Whenever I go there, I order the same flavours as I used to all those years ago: plain milk, pistachio and the fruit flavour of the season.
Unlike many Levantine sweets, ice cream is easy to recreate at home. The principle of the domestic ice-cream churner is the same as the giant ones the late Hanna used and Özgüler still uses, and preparing the salep-thickened mixture is fairly easy to master, that is if you can source the best salep from Turkey, now banned from export because it has become endangered. You can replace the salep with cornflour. You will not get the same texture nor the faint earthy flavour, but many makers of ice cream already mix their salep with cornflour, so your’s wouldn’t be too different if you use it.
Makes about 1 litre (1¾ pints)
600ml (1 pint) full-cream organic milk
½ tbsp salep or 3 tbsp cornflour
200g (7oz) golden caster sugar
200g (7oz) raw shelled pistachios, finely ground
300ml (½ pint) crème fraîche
2 tbsp rose water
¼ tsp ground mastic
Pour the milk into a saucepan and place over a medium heat. Slowly sprinkle in the salep, gradually whisking it into the milk. Carry on whisking the milk as you wait for it to come to the boil. Once it is boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low, add the sugar and continue whisking for another 7 minutes.
Pour the milk into a large jug. Add the nuts, crème fraîche, and the rose water and mix well. Sir in the mastic and cover with cling film. Let the mixture cool before you pour it into your ice-cream maker to churn it into ice cream following the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezerproof container and freeze until you are ready to serve it.
Mango Ice Cream
BUZA ’ALA MANGA
The best mangoes to use for this recipe are Alphonso mangoes. They have a beautiful intense colour and an equally intense flavour that works very well with the milk/cream mixture. You can vary this recipe by using any other fruit that is in season. Some work better than others, however: the more watery the fruit, the less successful the combination. Raspberries and strawberries work very well.
Makes about 1.2 litres (2 pints)
300ml (½ pint) full-cream organic milk
500g (1lb 1oz) ripe mango flesh
250ml (9fl oz) double cream (preferably goat’s) or 300g (11oz) crème fraîche
175g (6oz) golden caster sugar
Pour the milk into a saucepan, place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, then take off the heat and allow to cool.
Put the mango flesh in a blender and process until you have a smooth purée.
Transfer the puréed mango to a wide jug. Strain the cooled milk over the fruit and add the cream (or crème fraîche) and sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and the cream is fully incorporated. Pour into your ice-cream maker to churn the mixture into ice cream following the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezerproof container and freeze until you are ready to serve it.