Recipe for 10 Servings

Ingredients:

• 5 cups water
• 5 heaped tablespoons nisiaste (maize powdered

starch) or cornflour

• 5 tablespoons rosewater

To serve

• 10 tablespoons rose syrup
• 10 teaspoons rosewater

Instructions

1. Put 4 cups of water in a saucepan and heat.
2. Put the 5th cup of water in a bowl and stir in the nisiaste or cornflour. Add this to the pot and stir constantly until it starts to bubble and thicken.
3. Add half the rose water and continue stirring until it is well cooked and turn white.
4. Sprinkle a pyrex or a small dish with the remaining rosewater and pour in the steaming mixture, ‘the mahalepi’.
5. Allow to cool, then place the pyrex in the fridge to thicken.
6. The next day cut the mahalepi into pieces and shapes of your choice.
7. Serve the mahalepi sprinkled with syrup (diluted in water) and rosewater.

Chef’s Tips

• If you want the mahalepi to be more shiny you can add very little sugar during cooking.
• If you would like a more traditional version, you may use rose ice cream instead of rose syrup.
• The longer it is cooked, the firmer the mahalepi.

Seasonal Food Commodities

Vegetables/Salad/Herbs:

Okra, cucumber, dill, endive, green amaranth, zucchini/courgette, onions, cabbage, parsley, fennel, lettuce, peppers, chicory, celery, Swiss chard, garlic, tomatoes, beets, radishes,  carrots, squash, eggplant/aubergine, potatoes, taro, ‘poules’ (baby taro), green beans, fresh louvi

Fruit:

Apricots, cherries, peaches (some varieties), watermelons, sour cherries, melons, pears

Nuts/Pulses:

Raisins, walnuts, almonds, chestnuts, lentils, peas, white beans, dried louvi (black eyed peas), dried broad beans, chickpeas

Fish:

Trout, freshwater bass, mullet, whitebait, sea bream, kourkouna (rabbit fish), white seabream, parrot fish, saddled seabream

Poultry / Meat:

Chicken, lamb, goat, beef, pork

Traditional Dishes:

Fresh ‘louvi’ with zucchini/courgette, eggplant/aubergine in tomato sauce, okra, green beans in tomato sauce