The recipe I have for this halva has been passed down to me by my mother-in law. I guess its one of my husbands favorites too because it doesn’t last long when I make it!
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons Rice Flour
1 tablespoon Starch
2 cups water & Rose water (mostly rose water)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon oil
saffron
Directions:
Stir the flour in a pot over the stove (on med to med-high heat) for approximately 5 to 10 minutes. Then add the starch and water & rose water. Continue stirring until the mix becomes slightly thick. Add the saffron, sugar, and then the oil. Continuously stir the mixture, and once the mix has a thick consistency it will be ready to pour into a dish o cool down. Keep in mind it may take 15-25 minutes of continuous stirring until it is finally thick and ready to pour into a dish. You dont want it to be too watery! Also, when it cools down it will only thicken a little more than what it is on the stove.
This specific halva is made with white flour. There are many different halvas and I hope to learn how to make the majority of them!
Persian Halvaa
Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 cup oil
1/2 teaspoon saffron
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup rose water
Directions:
In a small pot, boil the water and add the sugar, ground saffron, and rose water. Mix and leave on low or place aside once well mixed and sugar is melted.
In a larger pot, heat the oil and add the flour. Make sure you are mixing the flour into the oil and continue stirring so that it cooks evenly (and does not burn). The heat on your stove top should be anywhere from medium to high (based on how quickly you plan to stir and now allow the flour to burn). Once the color is nice and brown, and especially once you can smell that the flour has cooked you want to take the pot off the stove top and add the liquid mixture from the smaller pot. The flour mix is very hot and will start to sizzle when you add the liquid mixture. After you have added it stir very quickly until the halva thickens. Once thickened place the halva in a dish of your choice and flatten then add a design (with a spoon).
Another favorite Persian frozen dessert. There are a few different ways to make this, but I will share my latest technique.
Faloodeh
Ingredients:
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup rose water
saffron (optional)
rice noodles (thin ones, usually sold in the Chinese food section)
Directions:
Mix the sugar with the boiling water, until completely dissolved. Add the rose water, and if desired the saffron. Set aside and once it is cooled down place it in the freezer. If you plan on making the entire package of rice noodles you will need to double your mix (sugar, water, and rose water). I left the mix in the freezer over night, that way it was completely frozen.
Once ready to make the noodles I took the frozen mix out of the freezer. I took half of the rice noodles and chopped them up a bit. Note: it was difficult to chop them up, so I actually used my blender (on chop mode) to get them to cut down a bit in size. Then I placed the noodles in a pot of boiling water for approximately 10 - 15 minutes (depending on the amount used, and thickness of the noodles). After I drained the noodles I ran them under cold water for a minute to cool down.
I then used a fork to mixed up the frozen mixture, and added the noodles to the mixture and stirred them in. I put the dish back in the freezer, and every 20-30 minutes I would take it back out and stir the contents together again. I did this for the first 4-5 hours, to make sure all the noodles were blended in well with the mixture. Afterwords, I transferred all the contents into a different dish (one with a lid) and placed it back in the freezer.
Note: you may want to add some lemon juice when you are prepared to eat it.
