How To make Assidat Zgougou
+We do Assida religiously . In Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Religious Affairs considers this festival as alien to Islam and as a non-religious innovation of origin - although its celebration is not prohibited by autorités14 - while celebrating paradoxically Mohammed bin Abdelwahhab for a week annually
+Assida Zgougou is a very popular dessert in Tunisia
What is Asida Zgougou :
+ It is a cream made from seeds of Aleppo pine, not to be confused with stone pine nuts and pine Armand.
+ Traditionally, Tunisians exchange bowls Assida between neighbors and family members, making decorating bowls Assida as important as the taste of the recipe. Many use all kinds of dried fruit to vary the decorative shapes and colors (pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc..).
+ I am going to be explaing the steps and put some picture !
How to make Assida Zgougou :
Step 1:
For cream Assidat:
- 1 kg zgougou (Aleppo pine seeds) preferably already ground
- 700 g of flour
- 400 g of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of starch or cornstarch
- 5 ounces of rose water
- 1.8 liters of water
For the custard:
- 1 liter of milk
- 5 tablespoons of starch (or cornstarch)
- 150 g of sugar
- 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
- 2 tablespoons of rosewater
- 4 egg yolks
For the decoration:
- Some toasted almonds
- Some unsalted pistachios ground
- Some hazelnuts and walnuts
Step 2 :
For cream Assidah: to two days before: clean the zgougou ground if not then let dry on a cloth to full dry.
Step 3 :
The same day: soak zgougou an hour. Remove zgougou water with a sieve then pass the mixer until a dough.
Step 4 :
Place the dough or zgougou already ground through a sieve (I advise a very fine cloth) and squeeze the maximum in a large bowl by passing 1.8 liters of water little by little to extract juice comes out of the cream color. Continue the process until the water clears.
Step 5 :
Collect the juice and put it in a large pot (pressure cooker kind).
Step 6 :
Add the flour, sugar and cornstarch and start mixing .
Step 7 :
Put on low heat and never stop stirring ,When the mixture thickens (even a custard texture), add rose water and continue to stir for about 2 minutes to get it penetrates through the last ingredient.
Pour the soup into bowls (glass péférence).
Step 9 :
let it cool .
Step 10 :
For the pastry cream: Boil the milk.
Step 11 :
In a bowl, mix 4 egg yolks with the sugar then add the starch and mix again.
Add milk mixture (on low heat) while stirring and then finally add the rose water.
Step 13 :
Pour the pastry cream with assida and let it cool .
step 14 :
Finally, sprinkle about 1 mm of almonds, pistachios or decorate as per your taste with nuts, toasted almonds, etc..
Step 15 :
Bring a spoon and strart eating .
NOTE : there are so many ways and hows that you can decorate you Assida Here's some of them :
Thank you for reading !