Sohan Asali

It is built on honey with no cereal in it at all, and sets hard enough to shatter into shards.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter), honey.

Ingredients

• 200 g honey
• 200 g sugar
• 100 g butter
• 250 g slivered almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, ground and steeped in 2 tablespoons hot water
• 60 g pistachios, slivered, to finish

Method

1. IT IS BUILT ON HONEY WITH NO CEREAL IN IT AT ALL, AND SETS HARD ENOUGH TO SHATTER INTO SHARDS. Its article gives the composition as honey, sugar, saffron, almonds, pistachios and other nuts, describes it as akin to a hard toffee that is brittle and breaks into shards, and says outright that it differs from the more widespread sohan. That difference is the absence of the wheat sprout, flour and egg yolk the other one has. Without any starch or protein in it this is pure boiled sugar syrup holding nuts, so it sets glassy and translucent and breaks with a crack, where the other is opaque and crumbles.
2. THE ALMONDS ARE THE BULK, NOT A GARNISH. Two hundred and fifty grams of slivers to four hundred grams of sweetener. They go into the syrup and the finished sheet is more nut than sugar, which is also what stops it being merely a boiled sweet.
3. HONEY AND SUGAR TOGETHER, NOT HONEY ALONE. Honey on its own burns at the temperature this needs and tastes acrid; the sugar carries the heat and the honey carries the flavour. Half and half.
4. IT GOES TO 150C AND NO FURTHER. Hard crack. Honey darkens fast past that and the whole pan turns bitter within twenty seconds, so a thermometer earns its place here.
5. THE ALMONDS GO IN AT TEMPERATURE AND THE PAN COMES OFF AT ONCE. Stirred through for fifteen seconds and then straight off the heat -- they carry on toasting in the residual heat of the syrup.
6. THE SAFFRON GOES IN LAST, OFF THE HEAT. At 150C it would simply be destroyed.
7. IT IS SPOONED INTO THIN DISCS AND THE PISTACHIO GOES ON IMMEDIATELY. Thin, so it shatters properly -- a thick piece is a jaw-breaker. You have about ninety seconds before it is too stiff to spread, so work in two batches rather than one.
8. IT IS ONE OF THE SEVEN NEW YEAR SWEETS and its article places it in Isfahan. It keeps for weeks in a tin between sheets of paper, but goes sticky in a damp kitchen.

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