Samali Politiko....Another Byzantine Sweet (Corrected)

Semolina is used in many sweets here in Greece the same way as it was used a thousand years ago in Byzantium. We have already talked about The Byzantine Empire which was basically the Eastern Roman Empire : Meat torpedoes with garlic and mint. My post March 30th 2011....



"Semolina is the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat used in making pasta, and also used for breakfast cereals and puddings. Semolina is also used to designate coarse middlings from other varieties of wheat, and from other grains such as rice and corn. Wheat middlings or wheat mill run, stated by AAFCO, is coarse and fine particles of wheat bran and fine particles of wheat shorts, wheat germ, wheat flour and offal from the "tail of the mill"." Courtesy of Wikipedia in Google.  I hope you understood because I certainly did not!!

Anyway, we are going to use the thick Semolina for this sweet as follows:
Serves: about 18 pieces of different sizes.
-  2½ cups of thick semolina.

-  1½ cups castor sugar.
-  1tsp.baking soda.
-  1½ cups Greek thick yogurt.
-  1 tsp. baking powder.
-  Hazel nuts or skinless almonds cut in two if you wish.
- 4 Tbsp. fresh ewe's butter (butter made from the milk of a female sheep). If you can't fine this butter, use plain fresh cow's milk butter.
 For the syrup you will need:
-  2 cups castor sugar.
-  1¼ cups water.
-  1/3 cup corn syrup.
-  2 Tbsp. lemon juice.
Method:-  Combine semolina, baking powder and sugar in a big bowl.
-  Combine yogurt and baking soda in a smaller bowl.
-  Add yogurt mixture to the semolina mixture and mix very well with a spoon till it is well mixed with the yogurt mixture.
-  Empty the bowl with the semolina/yogurt mixture onto a round mold about 35 cm in diameter, or rectangular 28cm by 38cm.
-  Spread evenly around with the back of a wet spoon.
-  Cut in as many pieces as you like.  They do not have to be equal.
-  Place a hazel nut in the center of each peace.

-  Leave the semolina 3 hours to prove.
-  Bake in a pre-heated to 200 degrees C for 35 to 40 minutes until surface is golden.

Method: for the syrup:
-  Add all ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan.
-  Mix and bring to a boil making sure everything is dissolved.
-  Let boil for 5 minutes.
-  As soon as the sweet is ready and golden, take it out of the oven, brush some butter over it, and add the boiling syrup to the oven hot sweet. It should absorb most of the syrup.
Note:  Some people, me for instance, do not like these eastern  sweets too sweet. So I sometimes do not use any syrup at all. Maybe that is the reason it was not written.
-  Let it cool completely.
Et Voila!
Enjoy!
Stelio

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