Samanu, also known as Samanak, saman, and Samenobova, is a Persian sweet paste made from germinated wheat. Many people love to have it as a flavorful dessert. But you may ask: What is samanu traditionally? So I have a great answer for you! Samanu is a part of Iranian Haft-Seen, a table-top arrangement including seven symbolic items, the first letter of which is “S.” Haft-Seen traditionally shows up at the Nowruz ceremony to celebrate the arrival of spring and Persian new year. There is a variety of Nowruz foods served in Iran, and samanou is one of them. Samanu Nowruz is a little bit difficult and time-consuming to cook. This is why many people prefer to buy it ready-made. But if you love cooking and you are patient enough to reach this fantastic samanak dessert, I recommend you to follow this recipe and prepare samanou at home.

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Ingredients for cooking samanu

500 gr wheat
2 kg wheat flour
3 to 4 liters of water
nuts (any desired amount or kind)

As you can see above, samanu ingredients are limited to wheat and flour. There is no sugar required for making samanu in the traditional recipe. Since its sweetness comes from the germination of wheat. But if you like it to taste sweeter, you can add sugar to it. Now let’s start our short journey for preparing delicious Samanak!

How to cook samanu?

At first, you have to clean the wheat and remove its waste parts.
Then rinse it with cold water and after that put it in the water for one to two days.
Do not forget to change the water three times during this period.
After about 24 hours, when the wheat head is white, rinse the wheat.
Wrap it in a clean and wet cloth.
Put the cloth in a dark and warm place for two days and let the wheat sprout.
When the wheat sprouted, spread it on a tray and put a piece of cloth on it.
After two days, the seeds are rooted, and the wheat is light green.
Do not let the wheat stay more. Because it gets dark green, and your samanu gets bitter.
Now trim and wash the wheat and then put it in a food processor to get squashed.
Pour the squashed wheat into a large filter. Then pass it through a cloth and squeeze.
Remember to squeeze it thoroughly to take all the wheat seeds.
Then add some water to the filtered wheat and squeeze again to extract its sap.
To completely extract the wheat sap, strain it through a sieve to make sure all the sap is extracted. Be careful about this step as the sap sweetens your Samanu.
In the next step, mix the wheat extract with flour.
When the mixture is turned into a thin liquid, pour it into a pot.
Put the pot on the flame and start stirring the mixture.
Be careful to Stir continuously. Otherwise, it will stick to the pot, burn and turn into Halva.
Stir as long as samanu comes to the boiling point, gradually becoming thicker and dark.
Then reduce the heat so that the samanu water is steamed and reduced.
At this point, you do not have to stir samanou constantly. Because it does not settle anymore continuously. So stir every few minutes.
After two hours, when samanu got enough consolidation, put a thick piece of cloth on the pot, which we call Damkoni in Persian.
Then close the pot’s lid and lower the heat near the end. So that samanu can get darker.
It takes about one hour to darken the color of samanak. Visit and stir it up once and for all.
After this period, our mouthwatering samanu is ready!

Note: during this process, if you see that the concentration of the samanu is very high and the samanu is tightened, you can pour a little water into it and let it boil.

How to serve samanu?

You can serve samanou as a wonderful dessert for your evening gatherings and garnish it with almond, pistachio, and sesame. Also, if you celebrate Persian Nowruz, do not forget to complete your Haft-Seen table with the delicious samanu haft sin!

I look forward to reading about your experiences. Do try samanu at home and send me your feedback in the comments below!