Fındık Helvası

the toasted hazelnut halva of the Turkish Black Sea: semolina slowly roasted in butter with ground hazelnuts, bound with syrup and steamed to a soft, nutty, pull-apart sweet

Origin: Turkey

From the journey of Hazelnut.

Helva, in its many forms, is one of the most beloved and most meaningful sweets of Turkey and the wider Ottoman world, made to mark births and deaths and the great feasts, and shared amongst neighbours in remembrance and celebration alike; the phrase 'to make helva together' means to gather in warm company. The semolina helva, irmik helvası, is the home-made kind, made by the patient toasting of semolina in butter until it turns a deep gold and smells of biscuit, then bound with hot syrup and covered to steam into a soft, fluffy, pull-apart sweet. On the Black Sea coast, where the hazelnut grows in abundance, the nut is toasted and worked through the helva to make fındık helvası, the toasted hazelnuts scattered whole and ground through the roasting semolina so that the finished sweet is dense with their flavour and studded with their crunch. It is a homely, comforting sweet, warm and fragrant, served in little mounds and eaten with tea, and it carries in every spoonful the taste of the region's own nut.

Ingredients

Syrup

500 ml whole milk
200 g granulated sugar

Helva

120 g unsalted butter
250 g coarse semolina
150 g hazelnuts, toasted and skinned (half left whole, half roughly ground)
1 pinch salt

Method

Warm the milk with the sugar and a pinch of salt in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then keep it hot over a very low heat while you toast the semolina.
Melt the butter in a wide, heavy pan over a low-to-medium heat. Add the semolina and the roughly ground hazelnuts and cook, stirring constantly, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the semolina turns a deep golden brown and smells strongly of toasted biscuit and nuts.
Stir in the whole toasted hazelnuts. Take the pan off the heat for a moment, then pour in the hot sweetened milk in a steady stream, stirring hard; it will steam and bubble up furiously. Return to a low heat and stir until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.
Cover the pan with a clean cloth and a tight lid and leave it, off the heat, to steam and rest for 15 minutes.
Fluff the helva gently with a fork. Press portions into a small cup or mould and turn out onto plates, or simply spoon it into mounds. Serve warm or at room temperature, with tea.

Notes

The ratio of liquid to semolina should give a soft, moist helva that just holds its shape; if it seems dry, warm through a little more milk and stir it in. Some cooks add a spoonful of pine nuts along with the hazelnuts, or a little cinnamon. For a richer sweet, part of the milk can be replaced with water and the whole enriched with more butter, in the manner of the festive helva made to mark important occasions.

The Gastrographer

Name: Fındık Helvası
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Turkey
Ingredients: 500 ml whole milk; 200 g granulated sugar; 120 g unsalted butter; 250 g coarse semolina; 150 g hazelnuts, toasted and skinned (half left whole, half roughly ground); 1 pinch salt

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control