Kalon prama or Samali from Cyprus

                                                                                                                        Receta en Español   

kalon prama or Samali is a semolina cake very popular in Cyprus, kalon prama means 'good thing' , so you can imagine how delicious this dessert is. It is made with wheat semolina, almonds and syrup, very easy to do.

Ingredients:

- 250 grams yoghurt.

- 150 grams sugar.

- 1/2 ground orange rind.

- 2 eggs.

- 100 grams butter.

- 350 grams semolina.

- 1 teaspoon baking soda.

- 2 teaspoon baking soda.

- 1/2 teaspoon mastika or anise.

- Almonds.

Ingredients for the Syrup:

- 400 grams sugar.

- 400 ml water.

- 1 cinnamon stick.

- 2 tablespoon lemon juice.

Method:

1- Mix semolina with sugar, baking soda, baking powder, ground orange rind, butter, yoghurt , eggs and anise or mastika.

Mastika is a tree resin or the liqueur made from that resin. It tastes like anise so you can use anise in case you don't find Mastika.

I made the cake with the liqueur of Mastika:

I found it in Madrid at this store where you can find other Bulgarian products: http://www.tiendabulgaraenmadrid.es

Mini mercado 4M Ezequiel Solana 78, Madrid

Mix well:

2- Mix until you have an homogeneous dough.

3- Put in an ovenproof recipient, make squares along the dough with the help of a knife, put an almond on top of every square.

4- Preheat oven at 170 º C cook for 30 minutes at the same temperature.

5- While the cake is cooking , lets make the syrup. Put in a casserole sugar, water, cinnamon stick and lemon. Put on a low heat and cook until all the sugar has been disolved. Then let it cool.

6- Once the cake is cooked, redo the squares on the cake, and pour litle by litle all the syrup over the cake.

7- You can consume it hot or cold, as you want. It is delicious!

Makrouts

                                                                              Receta en Español

This dessert is known as macroude, makrodh o makrout , it is typical from Algeria, Morocco,Libya and Tunisia.

In Algeria there re 3 kind of Makrouts, 2 of them made of almonds and 1 of them made of dates. 
Today I present you this makrouts filled with dates. It's origin comes from Mzab Oasis, close to Sahara desert. They can be fried or cooked in oven.
I show you the recipe of Makrouts cooked in oven:

Ingredients (100 Makrouts)

For the dough:

• 1 Kg medium wheat semolina .
• 250 g fine wheat semolina.
• 400 g butter (to prepare ghee).
• 1 liter water.
• Salt.
• 2 tablespoon orange blossom water.
• 200 g honey + 3 tablespoon orange blossom water (to bathe Makrouts).
• Cling Film.

For the Filling:

• 500 g dates pasta . (Already made or you can buy pitted dates and smash them).
• 1  teaspoon cinnamon.
• 1 teaspoon ground clove.
• 1 tablespoon orange blossom water.
• 2 tablespoon honey or butter in case dates paste is too dry.

Method

1.      To prepare the filling: Mix dates pasta with orange blossom water,cinnamon and clove.

2.      Use your hands to knead the dough until it is well mixed and soft . If you press a finger on the dough the print should remain.

3.      Take a little quantity of dough and knead it into the shape of a cilinder (make more cilinders with the rest of the dough).

4.      To prepare the outer side: Mix well both semolinas and salt, use your hands.

5.      Heat butter until it is melted.

6.      Get rid of the white coat of the surface of the melted butter, this way we obtain ghee.

7.      Pour ghee over the semolinas and mix well, first with a spoon , then when the mixture is not hot use your hands to knead the dough until all the ghee is well absorbed.

8.      Let stand 1 hour.

9.      Add orange blossom water and keep on kneading.

10.   Add warm water little by little, continue kneading with your hands until the dough is this consistency,  if you press a finger on the dough the print should remain:

11.   Wrap the dough in cling film and let stand 30 minutes.

12.   Spread the dough like a rectangle 1 cm thick and make a groove in the middle:

13.   Place dates pasta into the groove.

14.   Wrap the dates pasta with the dough.

15.   Roll the dough until you obtain a cilinder:

16.   Flatten the cilinder and cut in a diamond shape.

17.   With the help of a knife make some stripes on the surface to decorate the Makrouts:

18. Place makrouts on a oven proof dish, thay must be close one to the other because dates pasta should not be exposed to the oven.

19.   Preheat oven to 180 ºC.

20.   Cook Makrouts at 180 ºC for 10 or 20 minutes, thay must get sligthy golden.

21.   We prepare honey syrup,mix honey with 3 orange blossom water then turn on the heat to warm it.

22.   Dip Makrouts into the syrup, both sides.

        23.  Let drain :

My comments to the Recipe

 

This maskrouts can be conserved into the fridge for 2 weeks. The taste is amazing , if you eat them some days after the elaboration, thay are even better!

 

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Algeria