Balouza Muhallabia Fragrant Milk Pudding
A creamy milk jelly, which is basically a fragrant blancmange, from the middle east. the recipe is adapted from one in a claudia roden book. i made it with orange blossom water and pistachios, with about 3/4 cup sugar, and it was lovely - even my dessert-resistant husband loved it, and it's a good way of getting more calcium into children! next time, however, i will reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup. note that 2 hours of the preparation time are chill time - it only takes 15 minutes to make the dish. posted for the north african and middle eastern tag game :-)
Steps
Mix the cornflour with a little of the milk , to make a smooth paste , then mix the paste with the rest of the milk and the sugar.
Stirring constantly and vigorously , bring the mixture to the boil slowly.
Lower the heat to as low as it will go , then simmer until the mixture thickens.
Make sure you keep stirring thoroughly the whole time , or else the mixture will go lumpy and will stick and burn !.
Test the thickness of the mixture.
Drop a small blob onto a cold plate - if it holds its shape instead of spreading , then it is ready.
Until then , keep heating and stirring for a while longer , then test again.
When thick , add the orange blossom water or rose water , stir throughly and cook for another couple of minutes.
Pour into a glass dish , allow to cool slightly , then decorate with chopped nuts , making pretty patterns.
Chill until serving.
Ingredients
cornflour, milk, sugar, orange blossom water, blanched almonds