Muhallabiyeh

Milk, sugar and starch, stirred one way until it boils, then poured into glass bowls and left to set. Ground pistachio goes on top, sometimes a dried rose bud. The scent comes from mastic and from rose or orange blossom water. In Syria people often say mhallayeh, and either name works at the counter.

What decides the texture

Too much starch turns it to jelly, too little and it slumps in the bowl. The right set holds the mark of a spoon for a moment, then closes over it. Mastic goes in by count, and one grain too many pushes the flavour towards resin. So the gap between a home bowl and a shop bowl is not the recipe. It is the hand.

Which milk pudding this is

Muhallabiyeh is completely smooth. No grain in it at all, so if you can see rice you are holding riz bi haleeb instead. Halawet el-jibn, made with stretched cheese and rolled around cream, is a different thing and comes warm. Muhallabiyeh arrives cold and never leaves its bowl; nothing is turned out of a mould here.

Where to eat it

In the chilled window of a sweet shop, in single-portion bowls. Households also make a pot of it in Ramadan for after iftar, when the light thing is what everyone wants after a heavy table. It works in the afternoon heat as well. No coffee needed alongside.