Azerbaijani Halva

A culture condoning spoonfuls of caramel? This, I think is humanity at its most brilliant. Eating Azerbaijani halva is like eating batter without the bad-girl complex. And who really wants the apple in a caramel apple anyway? But the purpose for halva isn't to gorge your own sweet tooth. It's to lift up a community in a time of loss, an attempt to give one's friends and family a moment of sweet relief during mourning. Click at right for the full story, how-to-photos and recipe.

Photo: Matt Boutet

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2011

The Story

A Commemorative Feast

Then Tea with Sweets

By Lindsay Sterling

I went to a gathering of thirty Azerbaijani-Americans in a home near the Portland Jetport to learn how to make halva. It’s a confection served in various forms in the Middle East, parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. Sometimes it’s made with pistachios and sesame paste, but in Azerbaijan, the caramel-like sweet is made made out of butter, flour, water, sugar, salt and a little turmeric.

Afet Nadirova, a middle-aged woman with black hair pulled back into small ponytail, was my teacher. She melted three sticks of butter in a large skillet and then mixed in enough flour to make the texture of peanut butter cookie dough. She kept pressing sections of this flour-and-butter dough with her spoon into the pan on medium-low heat, preventing the mixture from burning and continuing to enmesh the butter and the flour. “How long do you have to do that?” I asked. When she responded, “An hour,” I thought we might be in the language barrier. She meant it. As Afet and I took turns stirring, her friend Zemfira made sugar-syrup by heating up sugar and water together in a small soup pot.

After forty minutes of stirring and mashing, the dry dough seemed to give up, and become its new form: a wet paste that left the swirling marks of Afet’s constantly moving wooden spoon. She added a pinch of salt, and a half of a teaspoon of turmeric, and continued stirring. Over time the mixture turned from light tan to dark caramel, at which point Afet mixed in the simple syrup. What resulted was a full pan of thick caramel. Afet spooned this onto a salad plates, tilting them slightly this way and that way to encourage the halva to spread evenly. Lastly, Afet imprinted the cooling halva on each plate with the tip of her spoon, again and again, making a decorative pattern on the surface.

The reason Afet and her friend were making halva for these guests was to commemorate the loss of a village where Azerbaijani people used to live twenty years before. What happened to this village in Azerbaijan on February 25 and 26, 1992, is still disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. From the perspective of the Azerbaijani-Americans gathered, this is what happened. There was a village, named Khojaly filled with 2500 rural mountain people, Azerbaijanis, or Azeris as they are called, who lived peacefully. Armenian and Russian forces surrounded this village in secret and massacred 613 of the villagers, including woman, children, and elderly, and performed gross displays of disfigurement with the dead bodies.

The grief of those gathered in Portland felt similar to that of Americans on an anniversary of Nine Eleven. Part of their grief is that whatever organization or person did order the attacks has not claimed responsibility or come to account. To commemorate the lives of those lost, guests ate a potluck feast of foods from the village’s region: a giant platter of yellow rice, cornish hen with egg, beef with apricots, yogurt soup, cornish hen stuffed with ground walnuts and pomegranate molasses, and pickled and fresh garden vegetables. After the feast, Afet and her friend served the plates of halva, with Earl Grey tea steeped with cardamom, and also lemon slices, blackberries, grapes, homemade pastries, and an additional box of Dunkin’ Donuts.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2012

The Recipe - Halva

Azerbaijani Halva

As Afet Nadirova from Baku, Azerbaijan, taught Lindsay Sterling in South Portland, Maine, February 25, 2012

Serves about 30

Cooking Time: about 1 hr

3 sticks butter

2-3 cups flour

3 cups sugar

2 1/2 cups water

pinch salt

1/2 tsp turmeric

In a 6 quart soup pot, mix sugar and water and heat until the sugar dissolves and you have simple syrup. Remove from heat. In a large saute pan with at least 2-inch high sides, melt the butter. Turn to low heat (setting 3 out of 10). Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and flour mixture is a thick dough that looks like maple sugar candy, roux, or peanut butter cookie dough, whichever you're familiar with. Mash the mixture with the back of the spoon, and stir around for about an hour. When the mixture turns from a dry dough to a thick paste with a wet shimmer to it, add a pinch of salt and 1/2 tsp turmeric, and keep stirring. When the color has darkened to a deep caramel, remove from stove and put the pan on hot pads on the counter. (This should be just shy of an hour after starting) Pour the simple syrup into the butter and flour mixture, stirring as vigorously as you can with the spoon without splashing. Use enough of the simple syrup to make a thick paste that's between a liquid and a solid. Fill salad plates with large spoonfuls that spread out to the edges of the plate. Decorate the top of the halva by imprinting the spoon tip repeatedly making three columns. Serve with Earl Grey tea steeped with cardamom, fresh lemon slices, other chocolates and pastries, and fresh fruit such as blackberries, strawberries, and grapes.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2012

See How To Do It

Azerbaijani Halva

She used this glass cup as a measuring cup so I have to guess: I think it was about 1 1/2 cups water with 3 cups sugar.

She mixed enough flour into the butter until the texture looked right. She didn't measure the amount.

This is the initial texture you're looking for, which you cook on low for a long time.

I took a turn stirring and mashing the dough.

Look how the texture changes over time - what was once essentially a solid is now more of a liquid - a very thick liquid, a paste.

Add a pinch salt and a half teaspoon turmeric, and keep stirring. This helps the color turn to appetizing caramel in addition to the long, slow cooking of the butter/flour.

Now Afet and her friend pour the sugar water into the flour and butter mixture stirring at the same time.

It thickens into this deliciousness: halva!

Nice touch how they decorate the tops of the halva with a tip of a spoon.

Photos: Matt Boutet