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|  The photo to the left shows ripe mahaleb cherries on the tree. Photo by Ras
201105172122Prunus mahaleb
 
Also called Mahaleb Cherry or Rock Cherry, native to central and southern Europe, central Asia, and northwest Africa. The plant is cultivated for a spice. The spice comes from the seeds inside its fruits, either by grinding and powdering the seed kernels. It is fragrant and tastes like bitter almonds.
It is used in small quantity to sharpen sweet foods, such as sweet breads and confectionery. In Greece, it is added in a kind of braided bread that is traditionally eaten in Easter, also to make yeast cake, yeast biscuit, and Easter cheese cake.
In western Asia, Mahaleb kernels are used in Lebanon and Armenian cooking, mostly ground finely to flavour breads and crackers.
Tsoureki - Greek Easter Loaf
Ingredients: 1kg flour, 1 cup lukewarm milk, 2 bags instant dry yeast, 1.5 cup sugar, cherry mahaleb, grated lemon rind, 1 cup shortening, 6 eggs,
Methods:
1. knead and let dough rises twice.
2. Divide into three portions and each portion into another three. Roll out each portion into strip. Braid 3 strips together loosely.
3. Cover the tsoureki till they are double in size.
4. Beat lightly 1 egg with 1-2 tbs sugar and glaze the tsourekia.
5. Bake for 20 minutes or till golden brown.
Health benefits
anti-inflammation
stimulates respiration
improves digestion
Toxicity
This toxin is found mainly in the leaves and seed and is readily detected by its bitter taste. So do not eat if it's too bitter.
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hat is Mahlab?
There are many alternative spellings for this spice; mahlab, mahalab, mahleb, mahlebi or mahaleb. All of these names refer to an unusual fragrant spice made from the stones of a small, black cherry tree that grows wild in the Mediterranean region across to Turkey. It was first used for perfumes in the Middle East and Turkey, where it later became popular as a spice for flavouring breads. The world’s major producer of mahlab is now Iran, followed by Turkey and Syria..
Spice Description
Mahlab is the dried kernel of a small cherry stone. It is oval, about 5mm (3/16″) long, buff-coloured with a finely wrinkled skin and a cream-coloured interior. The powdered spice is yellowish, similar to the colour to mace. Mahlab is not readily available outside the Middle East, though you may find it in Greek or Middle Eastern markets.
Bouquet: quite sweet with notes of cherry and almond. Some describe it as resembling marzipan.
Flavour: a combination of fragrant rosewater-like sweetness and a nutty and faintly bitter, but not unpleasant aftertaste..
Hotness Scale: 1
Preparation and Storage
Mahlab is available whole or ground but, as it quickly deteriorates once ground, it is preferable to pulverise the kernels when needed. Use a pestle and mortar; a coffee grinder is ideal. Generally only small quantities of ground mahlebi are specified in recipes. Store in airtight containers.
Cooking with Mahlab
Mahlab is used widely in Mediterranean countries and the Middle East, especially Turkey, in breads, biscuits and less sweet cakes and pastries. It is well worth experimenting with this unfamiliar but intriguing flavouring. One or two spoonfuls added to a rich pastry for fresh fruit flans gives them a subtle note. Simple milk puddings can be transformed with a few pinches of mahlab and Turkish rice is given its floral fragrance and interesting taste from the spice. A traditional Greek Easter bread is flavoured with mahlab and decorated with coloured eggs. Because of its fragrant character and potential for bitterness, use it sparingly, 1/2 to 1 tsp (2 – 5 ml) to 2 cups (500 ml) of flour in a recipe.
Plant Description and Cultivation
A deciduous tree, 1-12m (3-40ft), with many spreading branches. The bark is smooth and mahogany red. The leaves, up to 6cm (2′/2ifl) long, are bright green, shiny, oval and finely toothed. The flowers are white, single, on long stalks in clusters. The fruit is small, 5-10mm (1/4-3/8in), slightly oval, green at first then black. This early flowering tree grows wild in southern Europe, Mediterranean areas, Turkey and the Levant. It is grown as an ornamental tree in other parts of Europe, including Britain. It can be propagated by seed and is used as a root stock for the sweet cherries.
Other Names
Mahalabi, Mahaleb(i), Mahlab, Mahiepi, Marlev, St Lucie’s Cherry
French: mahaleb
German: Mahaleb
Italian: mahaleb
Spanish: mahaleb
Greek: mahiepi
Arabic: mahlab, mahleb
Scientific Name
Prunus mahaleb
Fam: Rosaceae
Mahaleb Cherry, from seed, is 27 years old [2]
Cultivated for a bitter spice, mahlab, made from its seeds, this versatile cherry is also an outstanding ornamental with fragrant, profuse spring flowers. Mahaleb cherry is naturalized in North America in 39 United States and 2 Canadian provinces.A deciduous tree or large shrub, growing to 12 m, with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter. The bark is grey-brown, with conspicuous lenticels on young stems, and shallowly fissured on old trunks. The leaves are 1.5-5 cm long, 1-4 cm. wide, alternate, clustered at the end of alternately arranged twigs, ovate to cordate, pointed, have serrate edges, longitudinal venation and are glabrous and green.
The flowers are fragrant, pure white, small, 8-20 mm diameter, with an 8-15 mm pedicel; they are arranged 3-10 together on a 3-4 cm long raceme. The flower pollination is mainly by bees. The fruit is a small thin-fleshed cherry-like drupe 8–10 mm in diameter, green at first, turning red then dark purple to black when mature, with a very bitter flavour; flowering is in mid spring with the fruit ripening in mid to late summer. [2]
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Mahlab, Mahleb, or Mahlepi, is an aromatic spice made from the seeds of the mahaleb cherry. The stones are cracked to extract the seed kernel, which is about 5 mm diameter, and ground to a powder.
Mahlab has been used for centuries in the Middle East and North Africa as a flavoring in bread, cheese, cookies and biscuits. In the United States it is a staple in Greek-American holiday cake and pastry recipes. Many recent cookbooks featuring Mediterranean-style cooking have reflected the growing interest in this spice.Mahleb is used in Greece, where it is known as μαχλέπι (mahlepi) for holiday cakes such as tsoureki and similar egg-rich yeast cakes and cookies. In Cyprus, it is used in a special Easter cheese pie or cheese cake called flaounes. In Turkey it is used for "Poğaca". In the Middle East and Anatolia it is also associated with Ramadan sweets, including "Çörek", "Kandil simidi", "Ka'kat" and "Ma'amoul". In Egypt the powdered Mahlab is made into a paste with honey, sesame and nuts, eaten as a dessert or a snack with bread. It is also used to flavour the traditional Armenian holiday cake, "Choereg" [3].
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References
- USDA, NRCS, Plants Profile, Prunus mahaleb L.
- Mahaleb Cherry, Morton Arboretum acc. 161-83*4, photos © Bruce Marlin
- Wikipedia, Prunus mahaleb
- Wikipedia, Mahlab
- Synonyms
| botanical | Cerasus mahaleb |
| Arabic | محلب |
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| Mahlab, Mahleb |
| Armenian | Մահլապ |
| Mahlab, Mahlap |
| English | English cherry, Rock cherry, St. Lucie cherry |
| French | Cerisier de Sainte-Lucie |
| German | Steinweichsel, Felsenkirsche, Türkische Weichsel, Türkische Kirsche |
| Greek | Αγριοκερασιά, Μαχαλέπι, Μαχλέπι |
| Agriokerasia, Machalepi, Machlepi |
| Turkish | Mahlep, İdrisağacı |
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| Flowering mahalab cherry tree |
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| Mahaleb cherry flowers |
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| Mahaleb cherry kernels |
- Note
There are many alternative spelling of the Arabic name of this spice, محلب, in Latin letters, e. g., mahlab, mahalab, mahleb ormahaleb. In Turkish, the final consonant gets devoiced, yielding mahlep or mahalep. The Greek name μαχλέπι is variously transcribed into Latin letters as mahlepi, machlepi ormakhlepi.
- Used plant part
The soft interior of the fruit stone (kernel, embryo), which is beige to light ochre and drop-shaped (about 5 mm long); for a picture, see Norman. - Plant family
Rosaceae (rose family), subfamily Prunoidae.
- Sensory quality
The embryo is soft-textured and tastes bitter and aromatic. After some time of chewing, a subtle flavour of tonka beans or bitter almond develops. - Main constituents
There is little information about the volatile constituents of mahaleb cherry kernels. The literature does not mention cyanogenic glycosides of amygdalin-type (see bitter almond), but some coumarin derivatives (coumarin, dihydrocoumarin, herniarin) have been found (J. Nat. Prod., 49, 721, 1986). A more recent study reports glycosidically bound 4-methoxyethyl-cinnamate (which is structurally related to coumarines) (J. Pharm. Sci., 59, 551, 2006). Moreover, coumarin has also been isolated from the dried bark, where they form the majority of the volatiles (Flavor and Fragrance Journal, 21, 306, 2005). In all probability, coumarines are the main flavour compounds of the kernels.
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| Mahaleb cherry flowers
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From the seeds, a fixed oil can be extracted (30%) that is dominated by oleic acid and linoleic acid. Furthermore, it contains some unusual conjugated fatty acids: 9,11,13-octadecatrienoic acid (cis,trans,trans form: eleostearic acid, cis,trans,cis form: punica acid).
- Origin
Mahaleb cherry grows abundantly in the Mediterranean, Southeast Europe and West Asia; it is, however, sometimes found in Central Europe, where it prefers warm and dry climate. Its culinary use is restricted to the South Eastern part of Europe (Greece, Armenia) and West Asia (Turkey, Lebanon, Syria). Main export country is Syria.
Mahaleb cherry trees, being rather robust and insensitive to diseases, are commonly used as stock in grafting cherries, especially in the USA.
- Etymology
The identical names in Arabic (al-mahlab [المحلب]) and Hebrew (mahaleb [מהלב]) hint at a common origin. Allegedly, both words derive from a common Semitic root ḥlb milk . Cf. the Hebrew nounhalav [חלב] milk and the Arabic verb halaba [حلب] milk (take milk from an animal) . I do not get the semantic connection between cherry and milk, unless it is the white colour of the flowers.
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| Mahaleb cherry flowers |
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| Mahaleb cherry flowers |
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Literature mentions another related plant name, galbanum, which refers to Ferula galbaniflua, a plant closely related to asafetida, and the latex obtained therefrom; here, the name is motivated by the milky plant juice, which when dried becomes an aromatic resin which has of old been used in incenses.
Possibly, some names for fenugreek also derive from the Semitic root ḥlb: Hebrew hilbeh [ חילבה] and Arabic al-hulbah [ الحلبه], which was borrowed by Spanish as alholva.
English cherry (Old English cyrstrēow cherry tree ) has many relatives in European languages: GermanKirsche, Italian ciliegio, Hungarian cseresznye, Estonian kirss, Maltese ċiras, Greek kerasi [κεράσι] and Armenian geras [կեռաս] can be traced back to Greek kerasos [κέρασος] cherry tree and kerasion[κεράσιον] cherry , which entered some of the languages mentioned above via Latin cerasus cherry tree . The word has been speculated to be of Semitic origin (allegedly Akkadian karšu, which I was unable to verify in a dictionary, and more recent Arabic karaz [كرز]), but sometimes in Indo–European origin is claimed, deriving from a postulated Proto-Indo–European root ḱermus cherry , with unclear relation to ker cornel .
Swedish vejksel (or the German term Weichsel sour cherry, morello ) is related to Russian vishnya [вишня]cherry and goes back to Latin viscum and Greek ixos [ἰξός] mistletoe; sticky glue used by bird-catchers , because a resin from cherry trees was used to prepare lime-twigs; cf. the scientific term viscous syrupy . At the bottom lies the Proto-Indo–European root wiks sticky plant , itself possibly a derivation of weis melt, dissolve (cf. Latin virus slime, poison ).
I have no good explanation for the puzzling Polish name antypka and its Russian analogue antipka [антипка]. A wild guess would be to link it with the Turkish city of Gaziantep (formerly Antep).
For the botanical genus name Prunus, see almond. - Selected Links
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| Close-up to mahaleb cherries |
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| Ripe Mahaleb Cherries |
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| Ripe mahalab cherries |
The fruits of the mahaleb cherry, thin- fleshed and small (barely 1 cm) as they are, yield this unusual spice, whose delicate fragrance is, however, dominated by a rather strong bitterness (see also zedoary on this topic). It is probably both the fragrance and the bitterness which makes this spice uniquely suited for sweet foods, as long as it is carefully dosed.
As far as I know, mahaleb cherry spice is known only in the Eastern Mediterranean and nearby Armenia; it is used almost exclusively for sweet breads and confectionery. Especially in Greece, the kernels are loved for specialties like tsoureki [ τσουρέκι], a brioche-type braided sweet bread that is traditionally baked and eaten only at Easter time. Besides mahaleb kernels, it is flavoured with mastic, the resin from Pistacia lentiscus var. chia which is used only in Greek cuisine. In more recent years, vanilla-scented tsoureki has also become quite popular. Mahaleb is also used in Greece for yeast cakes or cookies ( vasilopita [ βασιλόπιτα]) and for a special type of Easter cheese pie or cheese cake on Cyprus ( flaounes [ φλαούνες]).
In West Asia, mahaleb kernels are best known in the cooking styles of Armenia and of the Levant. Armenian chorak (also written choreg or chorek [չորեկ]) is a sweet bread very similar to Greek tsoureki, although there is usually no mastic used for it. A variant of chorak is prepared as dry crackers. This product is enjoyed all over the year, particularly with a cup of strong coffee. An Arabic example is the crumbly shortbread pastry ma'amul [معمول] popular in Lebanon and Syria, which is usually stuffed with ground nuts or date paste.
In all these recipes, the mahaleb cherry kernels are used finely ground. Nevertheless, the spice should always be bought as whole kernels, because the powder spoils quickly due to its high lipid content. Even the whole kernels will, in my experience, go rancid after one or two years (unless kept in the freezer, perhaps).
Mahaleb cherry stones may be difficult to obtain in the West, being available only in Eastern Mediterranean specialty shops and sometimes from Greek, Turkish or Arabic vendors. As a reasonable substitute, I suggest a mixture of tonka beans with a hint of bitter almonds, which are, unfortunately, also not easy to get.
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[Bird Cherry; Mahlab, Mahleb (Mid East, Anatolia, Armenia); Mahlepi (Greek); St Lucie Cherry, Mahaleb Cherry, Prunus mahaleb]
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