So… it has been a while since my last post, but I’ve now decided to spend more time cooking and writing as I feel an insatiable need to express myself.

And what better way to break my dry spell than writing about Afghan cuisine?

Today I bring you an excellent dessert: Halwae Sudji paired with Afghan Barbari bread Naane Afghani. So please, enjoy.

Halwa

In the most general sense, halwa is a pudding-like emulsion made from flour, fat, spices and aromatics, and sometimes, milk and vegetables. It is almost always sweetened with sugar.

The term Halwa is controversial because everyone lays claim to it: to those from Levant countries, it is white, sticky and crumbly with an earthy flavor as its main ingredient in tahini, but a quick look further to the east in Iran you get a golden brown, almost jelly like, delicacy made with flour and saffron. Within Iran itself, halwa changes meaning as you go south, where it becomes a gray, warm and comforting pudding served at weddings (you can find my recipe here). The peculiarity of this lovely dessert is that if you go even further south, to Oman, it starts to resemble the golden brown dessert found in the north of Iran, but with a proper jelly like texture as corn flour is used instead of wheat flour. In Pakistan and India, there are many variants of Halwa¹, some of which completely differ in taste and texture to their Middle Eastern counterparts as they use milk, ghee and sometimes, vegetables such as carrots.

Halwa is everywhere, and in fact I was amazed to find while researching for this article that it is present as far west as Greece, and was far east as Myanmar! For now though, we must journey back north from Pakistan to Afghanistan, to find ourselves with a fragrant, sweet and comforting halwa. This halwa is made with semolina flour, which distinguishes it from the other halwas that I’ve had before. Variants of this can be found in Pakistan and India as well.

Ingredients and Preparation

• 10 cardamom pods
• 150 g sugar
• 300 ml water
• 10 ml rosewater (optional)
• 180 g butter (unsalted)
• 250 g semolina flour
• 10-20 g crushed pistachios

1. Extract the seeds from the cardamom pods and grind them
2. Add the sugar along with the water to a pot, and mix on low heat until fully dissolved
3. Add the crushed cardamom seeds, and optionally the rosewater²
4. Melt the butter in a separate pot on low heat
5. Add the semolina flour and heat for 3-4 minutes until it smells really nice (it starts to smell a bit like unflavoured pasta, but extra rich because of the butter!)
6. Remove the pot from the heat and let cool for a few seconds, then add the sugar mixture and mix well, until the halwa sets slightly
7. Cover the pot with a cloth, then put the lid on and cover the lid with the ends of the cloth
8. Let sit for 10 minutes
9. Garnish with pistachios

Enjoy

You can enjoy this warm in a bowl as a pudding, or serve it with bread (ideally flatbreads/tortillas). It can also be enjoyed when cooled. The halwa will set further when cooled due to the butter, giving it a grainy texture. Note that once cooled, you won’t be able to get it back to how it was before, as the emulsion has broken.

I enjoyed this with Afghan bread that I made with spelt flour³, though as you’ll see, my bread skills are in need of an upgrade. Perhaps that will be another article.

1. The great thing about their halwas is that the type of halwa is always identified by the name, e.g. gajar ka halwa (carrot halwa). This avoids awkward situations where “halwa” can mean anything… ↩︎
2. My recommendation is to add the rosewater even if you’re not a massive fan of it (like me). It makes the dish really aromatic. ↩︎
3. Afghanistan’s equivalent to Barbari bread. ↩︎