Faloodeh Shirazi

the frozen vermicelli sorbet of Shiraz: fine starch noodles frozen into a rose water and lime syrup, scraped into a bowl and eaten with a spoon of sour cherry syrup and a squeeze of lime

Origin: Iran

From the journey of Rose.

Faloodeh is amongst the oldest frozen desserts anywhere for which we have a continuous tradition, and Persia was making it long before Europe had ice cream. Its principle is unusual and, to anyone meeting it for the first time, faintly startling: thin starch noodles, cooked and cooled, are suspended in a lightly sweetened syrup scented with rose water and then frozen with constant scraping, so that the finished sweet is not smooth but granular, a mass of ice crystals with cold, slippery, almost translucent threads running through it. The texture is the point. It belongs above all to Shiraz, whose version is the standard against which the rest are judged, and it depends upon two things that Persia has in abundance: the ice houses, the yakhchāl, whose domed mud-brick structures made frozen sweets possible in a desert climate for two millennia; and golāb, the rose water distilled each spring around Kashan. Faloodeh is eaten in the heat of the afternoon, sharpened at the table with lime juice or with a dark spoonful of sour cherry syrup, and it is very often served alongside a scoop of bastani sonati, the saffron and rose ice cream, in a combination Iranians call bastani-faloodeh.

Ingredients

Noodles

  • 100 g cornflour or rice starch
  • 600 ml water (for the noodles)
  • 1 bowl iced water, for setting the noodles

Syrup

  • 700 ml water
  • 180 g caster sugar
  • 4 tbsp rose water (Iranian, distilled, not an essence)
  • 2 tbsp fresh lime juice

To Serve

  • 6 tbsp sour cherry syrup (sharbat-e albaloo), to serve
  • 2 whole limes, cut into wedges, to serve

Method

  1. Make the syrup first so it can chill: warm the 700 ml of water with the sugar until dissolved, boil for 2 minutes, then cool completely before stirring in the rose water and the lime juice. Refrigerate until very cold.
  2. Whisk the cornflour into the 600 ml of cold water in a saucepan until smooth, then cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens to a stiff, glossy, translucent paste that pulls away from the sides. This takes about 5 minutes.
  3. Working quickly whilst the paste is hot, press it through a potato ricer, a coarse piping nozzle, or a colander with large holes directly into a large bowl of iced water. The threads will set at once into firm, translucent noodles.
  4. Drain the noodles well and fold them gently into the cold syrup. Pour into a wide, shallow metal tray and put into the freezer.
  5. Freeze for about 4 hours, dragging a fork through the whole tray every 30 to 40 minutes to break the ice into loose crystals and redistribute the noodles. Serve scraped into chilled glass bowls, with sour cherry syrup poured over and a wedge of lime to squeeze.

Notes

Use a good Iranian or Lebanese distilled rose water rather than a supermarket baking essence, which is synthetic and tastes of soap; the difference is total. Rice starch gives slightly finer and more authentic threads than cornflour, and is sold by Iranian grocers. Some Shirazi cooks add a little lime zest to the syrup, and some replace part of the water with sharbat. The classic accompaniment is a spoonful of sour cherry syrup, but faloodeh is equally served with lime alone, and the combination with a scoop of bastani sonati alongside is a national institution in its own right. It keeps for a week in the freezer, though it needs raking through again before serving.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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