Four basic ingredients on a stove top and minimal effort makes you one of the best comfort foods known to man – muhallebiyeh* aka milk pudding.

In its simplest form, muhallebiyeh is a mix of milk and optionally, cream. Sweetened with sugar and thickened with either rice flour or cornflour (or sometimes almond flour), cooked to the consistency of a lightly set pudding. It is silky smooth – even recipes that use rice or almond flour turn out with a slight pleasant texture. It has a flavour so pleasing and mild that it has delighted generations, travelled far and wide and spawned many spinoffs. It is the perfect blank canvas that can take on and uplift so, so many flavour pairings – most often floral or fruity. My favourite flavour combination is orange blossom water topped with pistachio. I wish I could splash orange blossom water on everything, so that’s a bit of a given.

*Muhallebiyeh is a transliteration of the Arabic word for this dessert (مهلبية), so spellings may vary. Try also muhallebi, mahallabi, malabi, muhallabiah, muhallepi…

During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, muhallebiyeh also makes frequent appearances at many a fast breaking meal (iftar) around the world.

Where did it come from? Where did it go?

It is believed that muhallebiyeh had either Turkish or Persian origins several centuries ago. What we do know for certain is that there is a version of muhallebiyeh enjoyed in almost every middle eastern and south Asian country, and the primary components are milk, sugar and rice or another thickener (corn flour is a common one).

But there might be versions of muhallebiyeh in other cuisines too: Panna cotta has been extremely stylish since the 90s thanks to the American food scene, but it too is a simple dessert of milk/cream, sugar and a thickener (typically gelatine). And its predecessor blancmange is believed to have been a result of rice and almonds being introduced to Europe by Arabs in medieval times. Muhallebiyeh was/is the Arab dessert that used all these ingredients from then till now. 

Gelatine is non-vegetarian, but this factoid is often overlooked in restaurant menus that advertise panna cotta as a vegetarian dish – at least this is the case in Auckland where I live. So if you’re a vegetarian, muhallebiyeh might be the vegetarian version of Italian panna cotta you’ve been looking for.

Unlike its Italian relative panna cotta, muhallebiyeh is vegetarian.

This is my go-to muhallebiyeh recipe, and you will inevitably tweak this according to your taste after you give the basic recipe a go, by adjusting the sweetness, or making a thicker consistency by cooking for longer or adding your choice of flavouring instead of orange blossom water (think vanilla essence, fruit puree or concentrate).  This is very hard to mess up – even if you do, it will still be delicious.