Recipe Ingredients
600 g. yogurt
1 ½ cups. sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup. water
1 tsp. mastic (pounded into powder)
500 g. coarse semolina
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. butter for the pan
For serving
cream ice cream
Aegina pistachio crumbs
For the syrup
4 cups. sugar
3 cups. water
lemon peel
3 tsp. lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick
Execution
We start the civil samali by mixing the yogurt with 1 ½ cups of sugar in a large bowl.
Dilute the soda in water and pour it into the mixture. Add the mastic, lemon zest and semolina, drizzle by drizzle, mixing little by little by hand or with a spoon so that it does not clump. We make sure that the ingredients are homogenized and that the semolina dissolves without forming lumps.
without it.
Grease a 24×30 cm baking pan well. Pour the batter into the pan and smooth out its surface.
Let it stand for 30 minutes and for the semolina to rise well in the remaining ingredients.
Preheat the oven. We will bake on the resistors at 180 degrees C, on the lower rack. If you bake in air, lower the temperature by 20 degrees and bake on the middle rack.
Put it in the oven and bake until it is very well browned, cooked properly and the grain of the coarse semolina pops. It will take about 45-50 minutes.
For the syrup
In a saucepan, add the sugar, water, lemon peel, juice and cinnamon. Boil the syrup for 5 minutes over medium heat, until it becomes thick. Keep it warm and remove the dessert from the oven. While the dessert is still hot, quickly cut it into pieces, dipping the knife in hot water each time to avoid damaging the surface of the samali. Pour the hot syrup over it little by little, it will absorb it all. Let the samali stand overnight and cool completely. Serve with kaimaki ice cream and chopped Aegina pistachios.
Extra tips
The traditional samali with mastic and semolina is one of the most beautiful traditional syrupy baked sweets. It is easy, fast and economical. However, to make the samali with mastic, grainy and properly syruped down to the last grain of semolina, it also has its secrets.
-To properly cut the samali, after 30 minutes of baking and it has begun to brown thoroughly, remove the pan from the oven, quickly cut into pieces and put it back in the oven. Continue baking until it is well browned.
-Well-browned samali means well-siphoned sweet. Only well-baked sweet absorbs the syrup properly.
-Use a large baking pan so that the samali becomes thin and rosy red.
-It is also a good idea to cut the baked sweets that have syrup the next day, so that they can be soaked in syrup and soaked properly.
-A nice trick to properly syrup all baked sweets is this. After syruping your sweet, let it cool completely. Then, wrap your baking sheet airtight with kitchen foil so that no syrup runs out and turn the baking sheet upside down on the kitchen counter. Leave for 1 hour. This way, the excess syrup left on the base of the samali or walnut pie or rhubarb pie will run all over the dessert from bottom to top. After an hour, turn it over again, let the syrup sit for a while and remove the film.
Good luck !!!
