Monday, September 3, 2012

Ice cream and helva dessert

Dondurmalı ve İrmik Tatlısı

Note: Irmik is durum semolina.  You may be able to buy this as semolina, farina, or cream of wheat.  If you get the cream of wheat, just remember that you don't want a pre-cooked or "instant" variety.  Sometimes you can get semolina flour.  This is OK if it's coarsely ground (more the texture of cornmeal than the texture of regular wheat flour).   

There's a similar recipe on Binnur's Turkish Cookbook website here: http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2005/04/semolina-dessert_18.php  We've used this website a lot for recipes and have generally been happy with it.

Here's Alp's mom and grandmother's recipe:
4T butter
6T olive oil
650 g semolina
2 c sugar
2 c water
pinenuts or currants (optional)

Put the butter, olive oil, and semolina into a large saucepan over medium heat and cook until the semolina starts to get toasty.  All of the semolina should be damp and crumbly once it's stirred in.  Stir frequently to make sure the bottom doesn't burn. Alp's mother and grandmother say you can tell it's ready when it starts to smell nice.  If you want to use pine nuts, toast these in a different pan.  Combine sugar and water in a different pan and heat it to melt the sugar.  Once the semolina is ready, add half of the sugar water solution, toasted pine nuts, and/or currants, and stir.  Once everything is mixed in, the semolina mixture is ready.
Spoon a scoop of the semolina mixture into a cup or bowl and pack it down.  Put ice cream on top of this, and then top the whole dessert with more semolina mixture and serve immediately.

This dessert is often given out to neighbors and friends when a person in the family dies.  After the funeral, a family member makes the irmik helvasi and gives it to people who visit the family and to neighbors along with a request to pray for the person who has died.

No comments:

Post a Comment