[Sca-cooks] nafila fatima?

Ana Valdés agora158 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 14 17:07:54 PDT 2008


I had the Hortopita today in a restaurante near the monastary of Saint
Pantelemon. Exquisite!! And later in my friend's place I had the pastry
Nafila Fatima, made in a village in the mountains. My friends wife's mother
lives still there and she is one baking it.
Much better and tasty than any baklava or philodough I know.
Thanks Huette!
Ana

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 1:54 AM, Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>wrote:

> The only nafila that I found on the internet was a Muslim prayer.  Although
> I am wondering if this is a Macedonian variation of Filo dough.  When I put
> in the words "Macedonia" "pastry" "recipe", I got this, which also mentions
> a very thin rolling pin or dowel:
>
> Hortopita
>
> My interpreter's mother (who was a commercial baker in Skopje, Macedonia)
> used a dowel which looked to be about 3/8 to 1/2 inch in diameter and about
> 3 feet long to roll out her pastry. She used this to make the pastry for her
> Hortopita, which is a Greek/Macedonian baking-powder-leavened bread stuffed
> with spinach and feta cheese. It is simply fantastic the way she made it -
> rolling out the dough with her dowel in a long thin strip. Then she would
> place the spinach/Feta cheese stuffing along the middle of the strip and
> fold the dough over the stuffing. Then she would roll the stuffed dough into
> a spiral like a cinnamon roll, bake it and serve. It is no wonder that I am
> not weighing 500 pounds! Make it several weeks ahead, and freeze, then thaw
> and reheat it in a moderate oven. Serve it as an hors d'oeuvre or with the
> meal.
>
> SERVES 12 )
>
> Ingredients
> 4 cups all-purpose flour
> 1 teaspoon salt
> 2 teaspoons baking powder
> 1 1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil, plus additional
> 2 leeks, white parts only, well washed, split, and cut into 1/4-inch slices
> 1 small onion, finely chopped
> 4 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
> 1 1/2 lbs spinach, well washed, dried, and roughly chopped
> 1 cup parsley, finely chopped
> 1/2 cup mint, finely chopped (optional)
> 2 tablespoons dill, chopped
> 2 1/2 cups feta cheese, crumbled
> 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
> salt, to taste
> Directions
> 1)Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter the bottom and sides of two
> 12-by-18-inch baking sheets.
> 2)In a food processor, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add 1
> cup cold water and 2/3 cup olive oil, and process until smooth. Remove the
> dough from the food processor, knead it into a ball with your hands, and
> wrap loosely in plastic film. Let it sit for 10 minutes or until ready to
> use.
> 3) In a large sauté pan, heat 1/2 cup of the oil over medium heat. Add the
> leeks, onion, and scallions, and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the
> spinach, and sauté, stirring until slightly soft, about 3 minutes.
> 4) Using a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables to a medium bowl, and add
> the parsley, mint (if using), dill, feta cheese, and salt and pepper. Taste,
> and adjust the seasonings if necessary.
> 5) Divide the dough into 4 pieces. On a floured surface, roll out each
> piece of dough into a very thin rectangle. Brush each piece with the
> remaining oil, and spread 3/4 to 1 cup of filling along the length and
> center of each rectangle. Starting at one long side of each rectangle, roll
> the dough around itself to enclose the filling.
> 6) Place the rolled dough seam-side down on the baking sheet, bending each
> piece to form a spiral. Brush with olive oil, and prick the surface here and
> there with a fork to allow steam to vent. Reduce the oven temperature to 375
> degrees, and bake until golden, 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven, and
> cool slightly, cut, and serve.
>
> I don't think this is what you were looking for, but I was having a hard
> time finding any recipes online that claimed to be Macedonian.
>
> Huette
>
>
> --- On Sun, 9/14/08, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com>
> > Subject: [Sca-cooks] nafila fatima?
> > To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>,
> "sca_subtleties" <sca_subtleties at yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Sunday, September 14, 2008, 3:48 PM
> > Hi, I am in Skopje, Macedonia, in a meeting, and I am often
> > invited to eat
> > homemade food in people's places. Today I ate one of
> > the most tasty pastry I
> > ever had, it's called NAFILA FATIMA (IBeautiful Fatima,
> > my hosts told me)
> > and it cames from the Ottoman empire but it's no longer
> > made in modern
> > Turkey. It's a very rich pastry made with 15 eggs, a
> > kilo butter and little
> > flour. It's takes several hours to bake it, they use a
> > very thin roller pin.
> > I searched the Florilegium but didn't find anything
> > similar. I searched in
> > Google for the name but didn't got any hit.
> > Do someone know what I am talking about?
> > Ana
>
>
>
>
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