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Faloodeh

The cooked starch batter is pressed through a sieve straight into iced water.

Vegan.

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE COOKED STARCH BATTER IS PRESSED THROUGH A SIEVE STRAIGHT INTO ICED WATER. Its article gives the step exactly: a thin batter of starch is cooked, then pressed through a sieve, producing delicate strings like cellophane noodles, which are then chilled in ice water. Both halves matter. The batter has to be cooked first, to a thick translucent paste, or it will not hold a strand at all. And the strands have to land in iced water, which sets them instantly -- into air or warm water they slump back together into a single lump and there is no recovering it.
  2. THE STARCH CAN BE ANY OF FOUR AND ITS ARTICLE LISTS THEM. Potato, arrowroot, maize or rice. They behave slightly differently -- rice starch gives the most opaque, softest noodle and potato the most slippery -- but the method does not change.
  3. THE BATTER IS COOKED UNTIL IT TURNS CLEAR, NOT UNTIL IT THICKENS. Starch and water whisked smooth, then over a medium heat stirring constantly: it will thicken while still white, and then go translucent and glossy. The translucent stage is the one you want, and it is about a minute past where you would stop if you were making a sauce.
  4. THE SIEVE WANTS HOLES, NOT MESH. A colander with three-millimetre holes, or a potato ricer, held above the iced water. A fine mesh sieve will not pass it.
  5. THE NOODLES ARE DRAINED AND KEPT COLD UNTIL THE SYRUP IS READY. Lifted out of the ice water and drained well. Any water carried over dilutes the syrup and stops it freezing properly.
  6. THE SYRUP IS BOILED, COOLED, AND ONLY THEN GETS THE ROSE WATER. Sugar and water boiled for five minutes and cooled completely; four tablespoons of rose water stirred in cold. Rose water boiled is rose water wasted.
  7. IT IS FROZEN TO AT LEAST HALF-FROZEN, NOT SOLID. Its article is precise -- the noodles are combined with the syrup and rapidly cooled until the syrup is at least half frozen. Into the freezer, forked through every twenty minutes for about two hours, until it is a loose slush holding separate noodles. Frozen to a block it has to be smashed and the noodles break.
  8. LIME JUICE GOES ON AT THE TABLE AND IS NOT OPTIONAL IN PRACTICE. Its article has it often served with lime juice and sometimes ground pistachios. The dessert is sugar and rose and almost nothing else; the lime is what makes a whole bowl of it drinkable.
  9. IT IS SOLD IN FLAVOURS AND IT HAS A DRINKABLE COUSIN. Its article lists pistachio, saffron, rose water and honey, has it served alongside the saffron ice cream on this site, and names a version from Yazd served as a cool drink. Faloodeh-making was added to the country's intangible cultural heritage list in 2023.

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 Iran · All recipes