Mastic ✦

Mastic de Chios

What it is

The lentisk grows all round the Mediterranean, but it only weeps usable resin in the twenty-four mastic villages of southern Chios, where growers score the bark and gather the hardened tears off swept ground beneath the tree. The resin carries a European PDO, and the cultivation method sits on the UNESCO intangible heritage list.

In the kitchen

Never grind it on its own — it gums the mill instantly. Freeze the tears, pound them with a spoonful of the recipe’s sugar, and stay near a quarter teaspoon per litre of ice cream base; past that it stops being aroma and becomes chewing gum.

Goes with

Cream White sugar Honey Rose water Pistachio Lemon Yogurt Orange blossom water

Same species

Antep pistachio Bronte pistachio Pistachio Pistachio oil Pistachio paste

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