Recipe Ingredients
600 g. yogurt
1 ½ cups. sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup. water
1 tsp. mastic (ground 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
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 to prevent lumps. Make sure the ingredients are homogenized and the semolina is dissolved without forming lumps.
Grease a 24×30 cm baking pan well. Pour the samali into the pan and smooth its surface.
Let it stand for 30 minutes and let the semolina rise well in the rest of the 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. Place it in the oven and bake until it is very golden brown, cooked through, and the grain of coarse semolina pops. This 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 thickens. Keep it warm and remove the cake from the oven. While the cake is still hot, quickly cut it into pieces, dipping the knife in hot water each time to avoid damaging the surface of the cake. Pour the hot syrup over it little by little, it will absorb it all.
Let the samali stand overnight and cool completely. Serve with cream ice cream and chopped Aegina pistachios.
Extra tips
Politiko samali with mastic and semolina is one of the most beautiful traditional syrupy baked sweets. It is easy, fast and economical. However, to make samali with mastic, grainy and properly syruped down to the last grain of semolina, this too has its secrets.
-To cut the samali properly, after 30 minutes of baking and it has started 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 syruped sweet. Only well-baked sweet absorbs the syrup properly.
-Use a large 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 great trick for properly syruping all baked goods is this. After syruping your sweet, let it cool completely. Then, wrap your baking sheet airtight with plastic wrap so that no syrup drips out, and invert the baking sheet onto the 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
