Marble Halva
Submitted by ofek on May 31, 2007 - 3:52pm
Servings:
makes one neat loaf enough for 4 westerners or 8 non-westerners here’s real raw halva – and it is as authentic as it gets. i am in palestine – where halva is sold in every open market by the kilo. halva is a sweet sesame confection. this raw version is pretty, delicious, heavy but dense enough to make you stop after a few bites. a great way to get more flax into my daughter’s diet…
(and yes i am well aware that the mulberries i picked this morning look (and taste) far more orgasmic – and that is perfectly fine – to compete with nature is suicide)
Ingredients:
½ cup white whole sesame seeds
½ cup golden flax seeds
1 dash vanilla powder, optional
½ cup black whole sesame seeds
½ cup brown flax seeds
2 tablespoon ground carob or cacao, optional
1 cup or more pitted dates (juicy ones)
2 pinch celtic sea salt, optional
Preparation:
this is very simple.
at minimum you need some kind of a seed grinder – i like manual primitive tools – i swear they make the food taste better. but if you must.. you can use your coffee grinder or blender to grind.
we are grinding two separate batches. we’ll start with the brighter color (this way we don’t need to wash in the middle because the darker batch takes over).
grind as fine as you can the white sesame with the golden flax and the optional pinch of salt (salt puts sunglasses on the oh so very slight bitter edge of sesame).
optionally add the vanilla.
by hand (if your dates are juicy enough) or in manual mincer or food processor mush and knead enough dates to make it all stick together with a smooth consistency. for myself i use minimum dates – but for pop drinking guests – i go large on the dates so they’ll be more than polite.
now put the first ball aside. and process the next batch with the black sesame, brown flax seed, optional salt, and optional carob/cacao.
now we have two balls.
in the picture i flattened them a little and then rolled them together into a loaf. then cut. but feel free to make your favorite shapes just make sure it doesn’t look like turds!
put in the freezer for half an hour at least to make it nice and firm.
keep refrigerated and eat as soon as you can. with every hour that passes, the fatty acids in the seeds oxidize releasing free radicals like myself.
salam and shalom until next time.
18 reponses to "Marble Halva"
1.
flax is not necessary - but an added optional feature for the ones that do want to eat flax. you can make it only from sesame and dates.
2.
This looks GREAT!!! The only seeds I eat are hemp and sesame, but don't digest flax well, or nuts. Is there a replacement for flax? Would hemp work? Thanks!
3.
PS tried this again using all sesame and no flax and it was awesome. Definitely something you eat quickly whether you meant to or not . . .
4.
how appetizing! and great presentation. you are awesome! ~thanks
5.
I tried the light part of this recipe only (don't have any black sesame seeds at the moment), but it didn't work so well for me. It tasted ok, but not like halvah to me. I did use unhulled sesame seeds, but I generally prefer those anyway. Plus it did seem to go rancid in a couple of days--not sure if that was the flax or sesame. I think next time I'll skip the flax and use all sesame; I get plenty of flax elsewhere. And indeed mine was crumbly. Plus, food combining isn't the property of (sickly) 80/10/10 adherents or even raw food nuts like us; the idea has been around for a long time. Although I'm not huge on paying attention to combining, I think that flax and dates in the same recipe is actually pretty difficult to digest.
6.
Amazing... is it crumbly? I'm not middle eastern so I don't know if its supposed to be or not but when i went to Iran thats how it was. I had it for breakfast all the time! I can't wait to try it! You are awesome!
7.
Thanks I will try it today :)
8.
hello daria - yes, divide.
9.
this looks amazing, I'd love to try... I'm a bit confused though... do I divide the dates in 2 parts??? half for one ball and other for the other???
10.
Ofek you are a genius and so funny too! You've stayed away from the site for too long!
11.
Shalom! this recipe is AWESOME!! Growing up never once did my house cease to have halvah in it...I will definetly make again, and share with my fam!!
12.
Mullberries... oh, I'm so jealous! I haven't had those since I was a kid, and there was a tree behind our house!!
13.
Wow! Mouth is watering just looking at your picture. Thank you.
14.
Ofek, Where are you from? And that halvah looks awesome...
15.
This looks great! I love halva, it has always been a special treat for me, raw or not! Thanks for the recipe.
16.
come on! its fine that you are a strict diciple of the 80/10/10 but atleast aknowledge that other rawvegans might not be.
17.
Catastrphic food combing.
18.
I love you for this. Thank you, I can't wait to try this!