I think it’s so chic to drink a glass of wine while cooking dinner for friends. (In my head it’s unwaveringly red.) Effortless and adult, in an apron and socked feet. I always forget that the reality is a) I’m very rarely the one doing the actual cooking and b) wine makes me stupid. Unthinking in the kitchen at the best of times, knocking back two glasses is throwing fuel on the fire. And so I burned my middle finger and thumb. Beginning dinner with my hand in a tupperware of ice and cold water, kindly sorted for me by a quick-acting pal. Chic. My phone still won’t recognise my thumb print to open it.
Thankfully dessert was the good ice cream brought by guests (had my hot paw round those handily sized pint tubs, skin slightly hissing) together with ‘a famous and authentic sweet’. A friend had been given a tin of Kilija Sweet by one of his students and, knowing that this household is a fan of intriguing foodstuffs that really could go either way, shared this first taste.
Well. These rounds are not only ‘rich with caramel and chocolate’ as the tin proclaims, but have more complex notes of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. Overwhelmingly a very thick, very sticky layer of cream-boosted caramel, for sure, though the sugar rush is spiked with spice. It’s like turbo-charged millionaire’s shortbread. Or augmented stroopwafel, wearing a golden lattice crown. The only place I could find it online says kilija is Saudi Arabian and carefully prepared for ‘a taste that is out of this world!’. Granted, I had not tasted this taste before.
I did, however, taste the rest of the tin the next day. First breakfast was a cold leftover sausage, second breakfast was a smallish bowl of restorative crisps and cheese savouries, and elevenses was a couple of kilija. The bottom layer sticks fast to the paper; the toffee acts as cement between soft biscuit and chocolate, and glue between kilija and its covering. Once prised out (with burnt fingers), very good with strong coffee.
