Hoşmerim

Fresh unsalted cheese is cooked until it stops behaving like cheese and turns to a stringy paste.

Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 700 g fresh unsalted curd cheese
• 150 g fine semolina
• 180 g caster sugar
• 80 g butter
• 200 ml whole milk

to serve

• 3 tablespoons walnuts, chopped
• 2 tablespoons honey
• icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. FRESH UNSALTED CHEESE IS COOKED UNTIL IT STOPS BEHAVING LIKE CHEESE AND TURNS TO A STRINGY PASTE. Seven hundred grams of curd in a pan over a low heat, stirred, goes through three stages: first it melts and slackens, then it separates and looks curdled and ruined, and then -- if it is kept moving -- it comes back together into a smooth, glossy, elastic mass that pulls in strands behind the spoon. That third stage is the dish. Most people stop at the second, when it looks like a mistake, and throw it out. It needs five or six more minutes.
2. THE CHEESE MUST BE FRESH AND UNSALTED. A young curd or cottage-style cheese with no salt in it. Salted white cheese makes a savoury dessert that cannot be rescued by sugar, and an aged cheese will not come back together after separating -- it stays as rubber in oil.
3. THE SEMOLINA IS TOASTED IN THE BUTTER SEPARATELY FIRST. Fine semolina stirred in foaming butter for five or six minutes until it smells biscuity and turns pale gold. Added raw to the cheese it tastes chalky, and that chalkiness is the commonest complaint about this dessert.
4. THE SUGAR GOES IN AFTER THE CHEESE HAS COME BACK TOGETHER, NOT BEFORE. Sugar added early interferes with the proteins re-forming and the cheese may never come smooth. Once the mass is glossy and pulling, the sugar goes in and dissolves in a minute.
5. IT IS STIRRED CONSTANTLY AND NEVER LEFT. The whole fifteen minutes. A still moment on the base of the pan and the cheese catches and the dish tastes burnt -- which is wanted in the pudding on another page here and is not wanted here at all.
6. IT IS EATEN WARM, NOT CHILLED. Spread in a dish and served while still warm and soft. Cold it sets firm and the elasticity turns to rubberiness; a leftover portion is better warmed through again than eaten from the fridge.
7. The butter melted in a heavy pan until foaming.
8. The semolina stirred in and TOASTED 5 to 6 MINUTES, until it smells biscuity and turns pale gold. Tipped out and set aside.
9. The cheese put in the same pan over a LOW heat with the milk.
10. STIRRED CONSTANTLY. It will melt, then SEPARATE and look curdled -- this is expected.
11. KEPT STIRRING a further 5 to 6 MINUTES until it COMES BACK TOGETHER into a smooth glossy mass that PULLS IN STRANDS.
12. ONLY NOW the sugar stirred in, until dissolved.
13. The toasted semolina stirred back in and cooked together 4 MINUTES, still stirring.
14. Spread into a shallow dish.
15. TESTED: the spoon should draw strands from it. If it is still separated and oily, it needed longer -- not less.
16. Served WARM, scattered with walnuts, honey drizzled over and dusted with icing sugar.

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 Turkey · All recipes