Meghli

Meghli (also Meghle, مغلي) is a Lebanese sweet made by cooking rice flour, water and sugar with the aromas of caraway and cinnamon. The smooth brown pudding is poured into small bowls and topped with white coconut and colorful nuts. Unlike rice pudding, in which rice grains are cooked in milk, it is thickened by cooking fine rice flour in water. Rice is used not as the grains of a staple food but as an ingredient for creating a soft form that can be scooped with a spoon.

Spices, Not Rice, Create the Brown Color and Aroma

The core aroma of meghli is caraway. Its small fruits, which look like seeds, are ground and used together with cinnamon. Some recipes (ingredient proportions and methods) add anise, but not all of them include it. Rice flour alone would make a white pudding; the ground spices turn it brown and add a warm aroma to the sweetness.

Caraway has a sweet, fresh aroma distinct from that of cumin. In neighboring regions, a similar pudding is also enjoyed under the name karawiya, derived from the Arabic name for caraway. There are also examples of it being served warm, but the serving temperature does not switch uniformly at national borders alone. There are ways of enjoying the same caraway aroma both in cold small bowls and in warm dishes.

Why Stirring Continues After It Boils

The name meghli is associated with “something boiled.” Rice flour, sugar and ground spices are mixed first, thoroughly dispersed in cold or room-temperature water, and then put over the heat. Adding rice flour all at once to boiling water tends to form lumps, making it hard to achieve a smooth texture without graininess. Stirring continues during heating, and by lowering the heat after it comes to a boil and simmering it, the rice flour absorbs the water and the mixture thickens.

The cooking time varies with the quantity, the formula and the heat. A small home recipe and a pot holding many times that amount, made for visitors, are not the same. In Iman’s small-batch recipe, the heat is lowered after it boils and it is stirred for about 15–20 minutes to bring it to a smooth thickness. It is divided into small bowls while hot and sets further as it cools.

An example of meghli topped with nuts, raisins and coconut. Photo: حسين علي قرياني, 2013-10-08, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Downscaled version from the distributing source; no additional processing.

Small Bowls That Announce a Birth

In Lebanon it is known as a sweet that celebrates the birth of a baby, and it is served in small dishes to family and friends who visit to offer congratulations. Iman, a home cook, learned how to make it from her mother when her daughter was born, and wrote down her meghli recipe on the occasion of the birth of her next child. The custom of making it to celebrate overlaps with an occasion on which a mother teaches her child how to cook it.

The top is garnished with coconut, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, walnuts and so on. Small pieces and flakes are layered on the smooth rice base, creating different textures in a single mouthful. The amount and kinds of garnish can be chosen to suit what is on hand and personal taste, and some households add raisins. Because the richness of nuts is added to a base made without milk, the flavor is built differently from that of a milk pudding.

In Christian households it is also made at Christmas. In this way, the Nativity of Christ is welcomed with a sweet that celebrates a human birth. In a 2016 interview, the food culture preservationist Kamal Mouzawak said that the village custom of making it at Christmas had become less common. Meanwhile, some Beirut households still place it on the Christmas table. The same bowl appears at both birth celebrations and religious occasions, linking the celebrations of families and communities.

There is also an explanation that likens meghli’s brown color to fertile soil and the nuts scattered on top to new life. Some makers layer such meanings onto the small bowls that announce a child’s birth and are handed to those who come to celebrate.

Left: rice flour and spices cooked and poured into a small bowl; right: an example topped with coconut and nuts. The colors, bowl dimensions and number of garnishes do not represent the norm of any single household. This is a schematic diagram, not to scale. Diagram: original illustration by Sweetlore.

Glossary