Muhallebi

Muhallebi is a milk pudding commonly made with rice, sugar, milk and either rice flour, starch or semolina, popular as a dessert in the Middle East. While the dessert is called Muhallebi in Iraq, the Egyptian variant is called mahalabia and the levantine variant is called mahalabiyeh. Legend has it that muhallebi (Arabic: مهلبية) was introduced into Arab cuisine in the late seventh century by a Persian (Iranian) cook from what was then the Sasanian Empire (224–651), who served it to an Arab general by the name of Al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra. He liked it so much, he named it after himself. The earliest recipes, dating to the 10th century, featured three versions: milk thickened with ground rice, milk with rice grains and chicken, and an egg custard without rice. Early recipes for muhallabiyya include a work attributed to Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq of Baghdad and two 13th-century Arab cookbooks, one by al-Baghdadi and another from Al Andalus that have a spiced pudding variation made with mutton instead of chicken. The legend of the pudding's supposed Persian origins comes from the Al Andalus cookbook. In the Middle Ages, muhallebi and its European counterpart blancmange were made with shredded chicken. There are records from the Ottoman Empire for two versions of muhallebi: a version with shredded chicken (tavuk göğsü) served during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror, and a later recipe dating to 1530 for a meatless version flavored with rose water.

Source: Wikipedia