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Recipes with anise

3 recipes that use anise, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Crespillos de borraja, takes 35 minutes. It is most often cooked with cinnamon, plain flour and butter.

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Crespillos de borraja

In the villages around Zaragoza and Huesca, the large, soft leaves of the borage plant become a sweet in spring: each leaf is dipped in a light batter, fried until it puffs and crackles, and dusted with sugar and cinnamon. Crespillos are made for Holy Week and for the Easter Monday picnics, and the leaf inside stays green and tender, with a fresh taste that cuts the richness of the frying. Some families add a splash of anise liqueur to the batter; this version leaves it out and uses lemon zest and a pinch of ground anise instead. A common mistake is using wet leaves, which make the oil spit and the batter slide off. Spinach or chard leaves work if borage isn't available. Chef's tip: hold each leaf by its stalk and let the extra batter drip off for a few seconds; a thin coat fries lacier and crisper.

35 minSpanishDesserts
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Chebakia

Chebakia are the dark, sticky, flower-shaped cookies that every Moroccan family associates with Ramadan; women in Fez, Meknes and Casablanca spend a whole day in the weeks before the holy month folding hundreds of them, and they are served at iftar with harira and dates. The dough is scented with anise, cinnamon, saffron and toasted sesame, cut into rectangles, folded into a rose, fried and dropped straight into hot, perfumed honey. They are crisp, chewy and very sweet. Chef's tip: work in small batches and keep the honey hot but not boiling; hot honey soaks in properly, while cool honey just coats the outside.

120 minMoroccanDesserts
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Sellou

Sellou (also called sfouf or zmita) is made in big batches across Morocco for Ramadan, for new mothers and for Eid, and is served in a mound beside mint tea. Flour is toasted slowly in a dry pan until it turns the colour of sand and smells like biscuits, then mixed with ground toasted almonds and sesame, anise, cinnamon, butter and honey. The result is a crumbly, nutty, not-too-sweet sweet that you eat by the spoonful, or press into balls. It keeps for weeks. Chef's tip: toast the flour patiently over a low heat and keep it moving; scorched flour tastes bitter and the whole batch is lost.

50 minMoroccanDesserts
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with anise