Booza

Ingredients

Base

• 1 litrefull-cream milk
• 200 gsugar
• 2 tspsahlab powder
• 4mastic tears, about ½ tsp
• 250 mldouble cream, optional

To finish

• 200 gpistachios, finely chopped

Directions

1. Grind the mastic tears in a mortar with a teaspoon of the sugar taken from the measured amount. Mastic is a resin and gums itself into a single sticky lump if you try to grind it alone; the sugar crystals keep it apart.
2. Whisk the sahlab and the remaining sugar into the cold milk before it goes anywhere near heat. Sahlab is a starch and will seize into lumps the instant it meets hot liquid.
3. Heat the milk slowly, stirring constantly, until it is just below boiling, then cook for 10 minutes until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
4. Stir in the ground mastic and cook for 2 minutes more. This much mastic in a litre of milk is the upper limit; any more and the whole thing tastes medicinal rather than aromatic.
5. Take it off the heat, stir in the cream if using, cool to room temperature and then chill thoroughly for at least 4 hours.
6. Pour into a deep metal bowl and freeze until firm at the edges and slushy in the middle.
7. Now work it, which is the step that makes booza booza. Pound and fold the mixture with a heavy wooden pestle, returning it to the freezer whenever it slackens, for 20 to 30 minutes in total.
8. Keep going until the mixture turns elastic and pulls up into thick ropes rather than scooping like ordinary ice cream. Bakdash in Damascus has done this with long wooden mallets since 1895, and a machine cannot replace it: churning aerates, but only pounding stretches.
9. Roll the finished booza into a log, coat it heavily in the chopped pistachios and cut it into thick slices, or pile it into a dish and scatter the pistachios over.

Technique

• There are no eggs and no gelatine in this. The stretch comes from the sahlab and from mechanical work alone, which is why the pounding cannot be skipped.
• Serve it colder than you would serve ordinary ice cream. It softens and loses its chew quickly.
• Mastic and pistachio are the two flavours. Vanilla has no place here.

Substitutions

• A teaspoon of cornflour with a pinch of xanthan gum in place of sahlab. Genuine salep comes from wild orchid tubers, is restricted on conservation grounds and is banned from export by Turkey, and a good deal of what is sold under the name is already a substitute.
• Chopped almonds if pistachios are hard to find.

Variations

• Scented with a tablespoon of rose water added with the mastic.
• Turkish dondurma, made with goat’s milk and rather softer.
• Layered into a glass with cold sahlab as a drink.

History

Stretchy mastic and sahlab ice cream pounded with wooden mallets; Bakdash in Damascus has made it since 1895.

Frequently asked questions

What is Booza?

Booza is a dessert from Syria: stretchy pounded mastic ice cream rolled in pistachios. Stretchy mastic and sahlab ice cream pounded with wooden mallets; Bakdash in Damascus has made it since 1895.

How long does Booza take to make?

Booza takes 30 min plus 4 hr chilling of preparation and 15 min of cooking. The recipe makes 8 servings. It is rated hard to make.

What can I substitute in Booza?

Yes, within limits. A teaspoon of cornflour with a pinch of xanthan gum in place of sahlab. Genuine salep comes from wild orchid tubers, is restricted on conservation grounds and is banned from export by Turkey, and a good deal of what is sold under the name is already a substitute. Chopped almonds if pistachios are hard to find.

What is the most important thing to get right in Booza?

Stir in the ground mastic and cook for 2 minutes more. This much mastic in a litre of milk is the upper limit; any more and the whole thing tastes medicinal rather than aromatic.