Show the Working

Soutzoukos

The strung walnuts dipped and dried over and over, a dozen times, because one thick coat will not set.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE STRUNG WALNUTS ARE DIPPED AND DRIED OVER AND OVER, A DOZEN TIMES, because one thick coat will not set. This is the whole process and it is measured in days rather than hours. Walnut halves are threaded onto long strings; the grape must is cooked with flour into a thick warm pudding; and each string is lowered in, lifted out, and hung up to dry for several hours. Then again. And again. Each dip adds perhaps a millimetre, which dries to a firm skin before the next one goes on. A string left in the pan to build up a thick coat in one go simply sheds it: the outside skins over, the inside stays wet, and the whole sleeve slides off in a lump when it is hung. Twelve to fifteen dips over three or four days gives the solid sausage of set must the name describes.
  2. THE MUST IS COOKED WITH FLOUR AND NOT REDUCED ALONE. Reduced grape juice on its own becomes a syrup that never sets firm. Two hundred and fifty grams of flour whisked into three litres and cooked out is what makes a mixture that dries to something sliceable. It is slaked in cold must first, as any flour must be, or it goes to lumps that will not disperse.
  3. IT IS DIPPED WARM AND HUNG IN THE SHADE. The pan is kept just warm enough to coat -- cold, it is too stiff to take up evenly; hot, it is too thin and runs off, and it also softens the previous layer and takes it with it. And the drying is in a shaded airy place, not in the sun: direct sun dries the surface so fast that it cracks away from the layer beneath.
  4. THE WALNUTS ARE WHOLE HALVES AND ARE STRUNG WITH A GAP. Threaded through the centre with a needle, two or three centimetres apart. Touching, they bridge with must and the string becomes one solid bar that will not dry through the middle. Broken pieces fall off the thread.
  5. THE ROSE WATER GOES IN AT THE END AND OFF THE HEAT. It is volatile and twenty minutes of boiling leaves nothing of it. Stirred in once the pan is off the stove, it is clearly present in the finished sweet.
  6. The walnut halves threaded onto long strings with a needle, 2 to 3 cm APART, and the ends tied to a stick or rail.
  7. 300 ml of the must taken cold and the flour whisked into it until COMPLETELY SMOOTH, pressed through the fingers to check.
  8. The rest of the must brought to a simmer in a wide pan.
  9. The flour slurry poured in in a THIN STREAM, stirring constantly.
  10. Cooked 25 MINUTES, STIRRED CONSTANTLY and the base scraped, until thick enough to coat a spoon heavily.
  11. Taken off the heat and the rose water and mastic stirred in. Kept JUST WARM.
  12. Each string lowered in, drawn through, and lifted out coated.
  13. Hung to dry in a SHADED airy place 4 to 6 HOURS, with a tray underneath.
  14. DIPPED AGAIN once the surface is dry to the touch, and hung again.
  15. Repeated 12 to 15 TIMES over 3 or 4 days, the must gently rewarmed each time.
  16. TESTED: the coating should be a firm even sleeve 1 to 1.5 cm thick that does not dent under a thumbnail.
  17. Left to dry a final 2 DAYS, then the strings cut away and the lengths wrapped. Keeps 6 months.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Cyprus · All recipes