[Sca-cooks] period baklava-like pastry was: Period Greek Recipes

Lilinah lilinah at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 6 20:03:08 PDT 2007


Vitaliano Vincenzi asked about baklava...

[BTW, Anne Marie, what IS the Turkish baklava heresy?]

Baklava - you don't cook it in the kitchen where the feast is. You 
cook it ahead of time, like the day before. If you don't drown it in 
syrup (all that sugar or honey makes me gag, i think less syrup is 
better), it should still be crisp.

I think part of the problem is that we have a certain idea of what 
"bread" is, and when a recipe calls for flat bread, our preconception 
takes over. Yet lavash is a kind of flat bread and it is usually 
about as thick as thick paper or the thin cardboard on the back of a 
writing tablet. Yeah, that's thicker than phyllo, but it's thinner 
than just about any other bread i know.

Now, i can't, but my Austro-Hungarian great-grandmother Josephine 
could make strudel dough by hand and it was nearly transparent. So 
there's no reason something approximating phyllo couldn't be handmade.

And when i was in Morocco i watched the mother of the family my 
daughter was living with for her semester abroad make a wide variety 
of traditional Moroccan "bready" items. Many were quite thin and 
nearly transparent and if they'd been baked instead of cooked on top 
of the stove in a pan, they'd be an awful lot like thick phyllo.

Additionally, poetic diners said that wrapper of lauzinaj was as 
transparent as a dragon fly's wing, and, as Isa ibn Hisham said, 
"Bring us some throat-easing Lauzinaj, for it slips into the veins. 
Let it be... [fresh], the crust paper thin, generously filled, 
pearled with almond oil, starry in color, melting before it meets the 
teeth..."

Sure, they didn't have phyllo, but i suspect that the "bread" they 
used was quite thin.

Below are three original recipes for lauzinaj. These recipes are from 
The Book of the Description of Familiar Foods, translated by Charles 
Perry, which has over 1/2 dozen Lauzinaj recipes on pp. 456-457; 
there are also some lauzinaj recipes in al-Baghdadi on p. 84. Both as 
found in "Medieval Arab Cookery".

Lauzinaj: One part almonds, pounded coarsely. Put a like quantity of 
finely pounded sugar on it with a third as much rosewater, and melt 
it with it. When it thickens, throw one part sugar on it and take it 
from the fire. It is dry lauzinaj.

As For The Moist: It is that you take a pound of finely milled sugar, 
and you take a third of a pound of finely milled blanched almonds, 
and knead it with rose-water. Take thin bread such as sanbusak bread 
- it is better if even thinner; the best and most suitable is kunafa 
- and spread out a sheet of that bread and put the kneaded sugar and 
almonds on it, then roll it up and cut it in small pieces. Arrange 
them in a vessel and refine as much fresh sesame oil as needed and 
put it on them. Then cover them with syrup dissolved with rose-water 
and sprinkle them with sugar and finely pounded pistachios, and serve.

Another Variety: It is that you take starch [sc. flour?] and knead it 
hard, and as much as it stiffens, thin it carefully so that it 
becomes like fresh milk. Take the curved mirror (probably a cooking 
pan of some sort) and heat it and pour [thin batter] in it with the 
"emptier" (probably a ladle) and take it up. Then roll up pistachios, 
sugar, musk, and rosewater in it (the cooked batter). Pack them 
snugly, cut them, and put hot sesame oil and syrup on them, and 
sprinkle them with sugar. This can be eaten right away.

Again, i suspect that the word translated as "bread" (and it's 
"khubz" the Arabic word for bread) may imply in this context 
something quite unlike what we might think of as bread, since i know 
i wouldn't call the wrapper for sanbusak/samosa "bread", and the item 
used for lauzinaj should be even thinner than that for sanbusak.

Let me note here that there are still modern desserts in the Near and 
Middle East made of thin dough (in Morocco, it's warqa, which is made 
in small pieces, then overlapped) in which the filling is rolled up 
NOT like a jelly roll, in the crispy outer layer. One is L'Hancha, 
"The Snake", which seems to me to be an awful lot like lauzinaj.

And finally, here's my version. Since i'm not much of a baker, i used 
phyllo, rather than make extra thin sanbusak wrappers or try my hand 
at warqa.

1 package phyllo / filo dough sheets
5 pounds almond paste (almonds, sugar, bitter almonds)
several bottle capfuls of rose water - i used Cortas brand
1 cup light sesame oil or clarified unsalted butter
[do NOT under any circumstances use roasted sesame oil]
1 cup honey
1 capful rose water or more to taste
6 ounces shelled natural (i.e., uncolored) pistachio nuts

The directions look complicated, but this was actually a rather 
simple and easy procedure!

Thaw and prepare phyllo according to package directions - thaw for 
several hours then place on a clean plate, cover with waxed paper and 
then with a clean damp towel. Do not let the towel touch the phyllo.

Put marzipan in a large bowl and with the hands work rose water into it.

Prepare a clean dry surface large enough to hold 10 marzipan snakes 
about 1/2 inch in diameter as as long as the largest dimension of 
your phyllo sheets. Cover with waxed paper.

Then with the hands, roll the marzipan into "snakes" no more than 
1/2" in diameter and as long as the longest dimension of your phyllo 
sheets, then place them on the waxed papered surface. Make ten 
"snakes".

Prepare a clean dry baking sheet about the size of a phyllo sheet - 
cover with baker's "parchment" - this is a type of paper available in 
baking and gourmet shops. It will keep the pastry from sticking to 
the pan.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.

Cover another clean dry surface the size of a phyllo sheet with waxed 
paper. Fold back the damp towel and the waxed paper, very carefully 
and gently remove one phyllo sheet, and place on prepared waxed paper 
surface. Recover remaining phyllo sheets.

With a pastry brush, gently brush phyllo sheet with sesame oil or 
melted clarified butter, being sure to get the edges very well.

Again, gently take a phyllo sheet from the pile, lay it on top of the 
first prepared sheet, and brush well with sesame oil.

Then place one marzipan "snake" about 1" from the long edge of the 
phyllo sheets. Carefully draw up the one inch margin over the 
"snake", then roll "snake" in the dough.

Gently remove phyllo-wrapped "snake" to parchment  covered baking 
sheet and brush well with sesame oil.

Continue process of brushing phyllo sheets with oil or butter, 
layering them, and rolling marzipan "snakes" in them, then 
transferring them to baking sheet and brushing outer surface with 
oil. Repeat until you have make ten "snakes".

Although my directions look long, this whole process went rapidly 
with me and one assistant.

With a sharp knife mark the top "snake" into ten equal pieces. Then 
with the knife, cut through all ten "snakes" so that you have one 
hundred pieces. Size will vary depending on size of phyllo sheets. 
Mine were 18 inches in the largest dimension, so each cut piece was 
approximately 1-3/4 inches long.

Put baking sheet in center of oven and bake for about 5 minutes. 
Check to see if pastries are browning evenly. If not, turn pan so 
paler pieces are in the warmer part of the oven.

Bake for several more minutes and check again. The phyllo will brown 
fairly quickly and you don't want to over cook them. Most ovens don't 
heat exactly accurately, some being hotter and some cooler, and also 
having hot and cool spots, which is why it is important to check 
frequently.

When pastries are a medium golden-brown, remove from oven and let 
cool on heat-proof surface.

If you decide they aren't brown enough, you can reheat them before serving.

Just before serving, gently and carefully remove pastries from baking 
sheet onto serving plates, drizzle with warm honey mixed with a 
little rose water, and sprinkle with crushed pistachio nuts.

NOTE: I used three large baking sheets as work surfaces - one covered 
with waxed paper for the marzipan "snakes", a second covered with 
waxed paper to hold unfolded phyllo sheets and on which "snakes" were 
rolled in phyllo, and a third on which to actually bake the 
phyllo-wrapped marzipan. All the sheets were approximately 18 inches 
long and 12 inches wide.

I made the Lauzinaj ahead of time and i've made it for two feasts now.

-----

A delicious modern baklava recipe:

Conchobhar, the Bard of the Mists, specifically requested Baklavah 
for the feast i cooked for him. This recipe looked good, so i tried 
it. It was *FABULOUS*!!! And it wasn't all that hard to make. We made 
it on-site, but it was an indoor kitchen with two ovens.

Baqlawa min Semsem wa Fistuk
Baklava with Sesame Seeds and Pistachios [literal translation]

Modern, Syrian-Lebanese, adapted from:
page 16
Patisserie of the Eastern Mediterranean
by Arto Der Haroutunian
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1989
ISBN 0-07-026665-4

My recipe made 100 small pieces

MAKE SYRUP:

3-1/2 c. sugar
3 cups water
juice of 3 lemons
2 Tb. rose water
2 Tb. orange flower water

Put sugar in water with lemon juice on medium fire. Stir.
Raise heat and bring to boil, stirring.
Lower heat and simmer 10 min., until syrup coats the spoon.
Remove from heat, stir in flower waters, and let cool.

ASSEMBLE BAQLAWA:

small amount of butter to grease pans
2 lb. phyllo
3 Tb. butter
2/3 cup sesame seeds
1/3 cup raisins, soaked about 15 min. in warm water
about 1/2 lb. each almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1 tsp. powdered cinnamon
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
2 cups melted butter
2 cups shelled pistachio nutmeats, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease two 12 X 8 X 2 pans with a little butter.

Place phyllo sheets on a large plate, open them out halfway, cover 
top with waxed paper, then a damp towel.
In 3 Tb. butter, fry sesame seeds until golden, stirring constantly.
Remove sesame seeds from heat and stir in raisins, chopped mixed 
nuts, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Put one sheet of phyllo in pan, cut in half.
With a wide pastry brush, spread with about 1 tsp. butter. Continue 
adding half sheets, buttering every second sheet, until there are 6 
to 8 half sheets stacked in the pan.
Scatter half of  nut-raisin mixture evenly over the pastry.
Repeat with another 6-8 sheets of phyllo and butter, then sprinkle 
with the remaining nuts-and-raisins.
Top with another 6-8 sheets of phyllo, buttering every second sheet. 
Butter top.
Pour any remaining butter over all.

Carefully cut into pieces  (about 1-3/4") without crushing. Be sure 
to cut through to the bottom of the pan.
Sprinkle all over with chopped pistachios
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 min.
Lower heat to 300 and bake an additional hour - check occasionally to 
make sure it doesn't burn.
Remove from oven and let cool about 15 min.

Pour cold syrup evenly over all.
Let cool completely.
Loosen all pieces with a sharp knife, and transfer very carefully on 
serving dishes.

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita



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