Middle Eastern · Dessert
Tahini Halva
- Advanced
- 30 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with toasted, nutty warmth throughout, acid holding everything up to the light, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 500 g light tahini, well stirred
- 400 g caster sugar
- 120 ml water
- 10 ml lemon juice
- 100 g shelled pistachios
- 2 g fine salt
Equipment
Thermometer · Sheet pan
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: nuts · sesame
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
- Warm the tahini to 40C (104F) in a bowl over hot water and stir it smooth, because cold tahini seizes the instant hot syrup hits it.
- Boil the sugar, water and lemon juice undisturbed to 121C (250F) on a thermometer, brushing stray crystals off the pan sides with a wet brush.
- Pour the syrup into the tahini in a thin stream, stirring with a spatula for no more than 2 minutes to 3 minutes, until the mass thickens, loses its shine and begins to pull into threads behind the blade. 2 min
- Fold in the pistachios and salt, press firmly into a lined 20 cm tin, and leave 24 hours at room temperature before cutting. 600 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Sugar stages & caramel 53 recipes
- Nothing is stirred once it is boiling, and any crystals clinging to the side of the pan are brushed down rather than left to fall in.
- Judged by temperature or by a tested stage rather than by time: consecutive stages are a few degrees apart and look identical in the pan.
- Colour is read off the heat and in good light, remembering that sugar keeps darkening after the flame is out.
- Stopped decisively at the point wanted: off the heat and into the next liquid or onto a cold surface, rather than left to coast in a hot pan.
- The result is clear and smooth rather than grainy, cloudy, or seized into a solid mass.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred after coming to the boil, or a stray crystal from the side of the pan fell back in. One crystal seeds the whole pan and the syrup turns grainy within seconds, and once sugar has crystallised the only cure is more water and starting the whole thing again.
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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