When I visited Sofra Turkish restaurant in Singapore in July 2012 I was momentarily disappointed to see that Noah's pudding, one of many intriguing dishes on their extensive menu, was not available. I had known about Noah's pudding for a long time. I came across it when writing a post on the various places in the world where you could see reproductions of Noah's Ark, buy Noah's Ark toys, and see mountain tops where the ark was claimed to have landed.
After we returned home from the restaurant, I discussed the recipe with the family. I looked up recipes online for one we could make at home, supervised by my husband, who is the cook in our family and made comments on the ingredients.
Noah's pudding is essentially an elaboration on fruit salad. You could copy it Noah style by making from leftovers.
We compared several recipes. The fruits vary. They seem to float on top of a liquid, which is thickened with additions such as beans, barley or chickpeas.
Beans, barley or chickpeas! That sounds like a savoury dish. Is it a savoury dish?
No. The addition of rose water makes it a dessert. However, it is different to and superior your usual fruit salad as an after dinner dessert or breakfast.
We devised a recover from cancer diet with breakfast starting with fruits and nuts in yogurt and milk with the bulky sustaining cereal of porridge , or muesli made from soaked oats. When in a hurry to travel we occasionally add a naughty, hasty half a Weetabix (which spoils our virtuous supposedly all natural breakfast by being factory made and adding a fearsome list of ingredients.
the fruit already contained a sugar called fructose, fruit sugar. We try not to add any more. Anything from a packet is scanned by our suspicious eyes. We check for our taboo, sugar. (I had to cut out sugar in fruit salad for five years, cooking for my widowed late father had late onset diabetes.
More recently, all this year and most of last year, I have been on a diet to lose weight because I was overweight at the start of 2020. being overweight is a vulnerability factor in Covid-19 times. I can't change my age, but I can change and check my diet.
Rose water? Rose water syrup? We cannot be over-generous with the rose water. Nonetheless, we plan to make a version of home made Noah's pudding soon and will show you the photos.
We visited Sofra before the recent shut down of indoor dining in Singapore. Maybe one day we will go back to Sofra to try their Noah's pudding.
Noah's pudding from the Bible, has reached Christians and Muslims as a festival dish and one to be shared with neighbours of all religions and none.
Turkish Muslims make it in the tenth month. Christian Armenians make it for Christmas or New Year. If you cannot find a recipe you like under the words Noah's pudding, keep searching under the words Ashura meaning tenth, or Asure from the Persian for mixing.
It is also served by Greeks at funerals and as a pre-Lent dish like the UK's pancake day.
The mixture can be thickened so that it sets. Using cornstarch or another starch.
You start by boiling up the grains the night before, or at least 6 hours ahead.
You can add flavourings such as cinnamon. Or ginger.
After the mixture has been boiled up, and left to set for a while, you add the topping. A favourite topping is the red pomegranate seeds which counteract any sugariness. The red of the pomegrante seeds can contrast with the green of chopped pistaccios which makes a nice stripe in an individual portion in a small bowl if you are making lots of individual pots. This is visually appealing. However, I prefer to have the toppings all mixed up for the flavouring.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashure
http://balkon3.com/en/the-istanbullu-greek-asure-an-example-of-cultural-exchange/
https://ozlemsturkishtable.com/2010/12/asure-noahs-dessert/
You tube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZDYVUfqvFs
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