Semolina Soup with Aniseed

This sounded intriguing with the Mastic and anise seed for flavoring. The directions worked beautifully. I haven’t found green anise seed yet, so used the regular kind. Grind the Mastic before you add the warm toasted anise seed, better yet, let the anise seed cool first. I had good luck grinding the mastic previously, it had just exploded under the pestle, but here perhaps because I added the hot anise seed to the pestle first, it made a very thin sheet, which just became thinner as I ground it with the salt and sugar. This is a very thin soup, and as you can see from my photo, this is one of those recipes where what you cook does not match the picture in the book. That picture is the same color as mine before adding the ground up spices. After it simmers with the spices it did turn the light beige color that she indicates in the recipe. I liked it very much once you get used to how thin it is. I preferred just a very small amount of butter on top instead of the honey. Because it is so thin, I enjoyed eating the skin that forms on top while it cools. This makes a large amount.