Egyptian · Dessert
Balah El Sham
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, a floral thread lifting the aroma, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 400 g caster sugar
- 250 ml water, for the syrup
- 10 ml lemon juice
- 15 ml rose water
- 250 ml water, for the choux
- 100 g unsalted butter
- 10 g caster sugar, for the choux
- 3 g fine salt
- 150 g plain flour
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
Equipment
Piping bag
The skills inside
Choux pastryDraining fried food: a rack, never paperSalted water & the float test
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Simmer the 400 g sugar, 250 ml water and lemon juice to 105C (220F), about 8 minutes, stir in the rose water off the heat, and chill until stone cold. 8 min
- Bring the second 250 ml water with the butter, 10 g sugar and salt to a rolling boil, beat in the flour all at once, and keep beating over low heat until the paste balls up and films the base of the pan.
- Cool it to 60C (140F), then beat in the eggs a little at a time until the paste falls from the spoon in a slow, reluctant ribbon.
- Pipe 6 cm fingers through a large star nozzle directly into oil at 150C (300F) and let the oil climb to 170C (340F) as they swell and colour, about 10 minutes, so the centres dry out before the outsides set. 10 min
- Lift them hot into the cold syrup for 60 seconds, turning once, then drain on a rack.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Draining fried food: a rack, never paper 77 recipes
- The rack was in place before the first thing went into the oil, not fetched afterwards while food waited in a spider over the pot.
- It lands on a rack with air moving underneath it. Anything set down on paper or a flat plate traps its own steam against its base.
- Salted within seconds of landing, while it is still hot enough to take seasoning.
- A minute later the underside is still as crisp as the top: no soft flat patch where it has been sitting.
- Nothing is stacked or piled while hot, however tempting it is to keep it together. A pile steams itself soft from the inside out.
Where it goes wrong It was drained on paper, or piled up to keep warm. Steam leaving the food has nowhere to go but back into the crust, so the underside softens within a minute: the crispness the frying just bought is gone before the plate reaches the table.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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