Halva Sharieh -- A Lebanese Sweet Treat

My Persian friend M shared another of the sweets she likes to make, and this one I made correctly the first time around.  This is another halva that doesn't use sesame.

She shared a website that has the recipe she likes:  Click Here!

The translated version is pretty cute, because this treat uses pasta but the translation keeps calling it "poetry." 

Pasta!  In a dessert!  Not that it is THAT unusual but not what I think of when I think of for Lebanese food.  And in this case, it is used in what I think is an unusual way.  Here goes...

Halva Sharieh

1 bag Vermicelli (super thin!) pasta, 150 gram size
1/2 stick (1/8 lb or about 50 grams) butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
pistachios for decoration

M kindly gave me the pasta

This recipe requires careful preparation before you actually start cooking. 

(1)  You need to decide how you want to serve the final product.  For example, you might want to shape each piece into a little "nest" to hold the pistachio nut meats.  I chose to make the whole batch as one large, flat piece that I would cut up into individual servings.

(2)  Once you have decided the final shape, you need to decide what container the final product will sit on.  I chose a glass baking dish that was about 8 inches by 12 inches.

(3)  Butter that container well.

(4)  Open the can of sweetened condensed milk.  Note that you will use about 2/3 of the can.  You can measure it out or just estimate.

(5) Now for the fun part:  Without opening the pasta bag, use your hands to squeeze the bag, breaking up the pasta into small pieces.  The crunchy feeling is quite satisfying!

(6) Open the bag and pour the broken pasta into a bowl.

I broke this up even more after I put it in the bowl.  

Now it is time to cook.

Melt the butter in a pan that is big enough to hold all the pasta comfortably.  You want room to stir it without bits of pasta leaving the pan.

Add the pasta and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring often.  You want it to get only lightly browned.

I cooked it in a large Dutch oven.

Turn off the heat, add the sweetened condensed milk, and stir well.

Allow the mixture to sit for about 1 minute.  The pasta absorbs the milk and the residual heat continues to cook the milk and butter together.

Then quickly spread the mixture into your buttered dish.  A buttered spatula or spoon helps with this.  I aimed for a uniformly thick layer across the dish.

Be willing to pat it flat

I used a buttered knife to cut it into pieces.  The mixture was still warm so some of the cuts closed when the mixture flowed a little, but it was no problem to recut them.  It helped to wiggle the knife side-to-side to make gaps.  Then I placed some pistachios on each one for decoration, and pressed them down a little.



Let the whole thing cool. 

The Verdict

I took it to a work gathering so I could get a variety of opinions.

Overall, it was well-received.  People enjoyed trying something different. 

General comments:

The crunch was surprising, in a good way!
The flavor was very much like caramel.
The nuts were a nice variation on the texture.
Some people thought it was too sweet and others thought it was just right.

I liked the sweet level if I ate just one piece.  Two pieces was too much.

The pieces were soft, so they bent a little when I picked them up.  But I was surprised that they weren't sticky on my fingers.  I liked that.

The pistachios didn't always stick to the surface, so that was a problem.  It might have been better to use chopped nuts and spread them on top before cutting, so they had a chance to stick before the mixture cooled.

I think it would have been okay to cut them into smaller pieces, especially for a gathering where a lot of other food was around, too.  I was reluctant to do that because I was using the large nutmeats and didn't want the pieces to look too crowded.

I also think it would have been good to use salted nuts.  The salt would have been a good contrast to the sweet.

So success!  This was quick and easy to prepare, traveled well, and tasted good.  Definitely poetry!

Plus it left me some sweetened condensed milk to put in my morning tea.  That is a happy thing.