I’ve gotten a little, what’s popular business lingo now…”push back” on yesterday’s post attributing baklava to the Turks. Pastries layered with nuts hail from Azerbaijan! Dough stretching techniques were first invented by the Greeks! Spices are a clear contribution of the Arabs! Some of these claims hold more water than others, however it’s beyond dispute […]
READ ONWell, no, but not because I don’t approve of it. Rose water is a traditional baklava flavoring that’s still quite common, even here in the US. I didn’t include it because it’s not easy to get outside of large cities. However if you have access to some, add a teaspoon to your nut mixture. Some […]
READ ONIt’s a tough question, because it all depends on what you mean by baklava. I get frustrated reading a lot of food history, because so many food historians seem to want to trace everything back to antiquity. When cheesecake cookbook authors start talking about the Minoans, or deep-dish pizza recipe writers refer to the Etruscans, […]
READ ONHmm…remind you of anything? If you said croissant dough or puff pastry, then you get to day’s cash prize (conditions apply, subject to void where prohibited). Filo dough is the ancestor of so-called “laminated” (i.e. “layered”) doughs. The chief differences being that while filo relies on melted butter and individual stacked sheets, laminated doughs employ […]
READ ON…is how I like my baklava. Commercially-made filo dough doesn’t taste like much, so why not go where the flavor is? Like any simple recipe, the better your base ingredients, the better the end product will be, so get good butter, grind your spices fresh, you know the drill. This recipe fits a 9″ x […]
READ ONSo if you’re not making your own filo, how do you improve on the usual mass-produced stuff? One answer is the nuts. Most of the baklava you find in stores contains one or two different kinds of nuts, usually walnuts with perhaps a few almonds mixed in. That’s because for a larger manufacturers more exotic […]
READ ONMy announcement that I’m making baklava this week has created excitement among a demographic that I fear: people in places like Greece and Turkey who really, really know good baklava. To these hopeful folks, all I can say is: please lower your expectations. The odds that I’m going to produce a world-class batch of baklava […]
READ ONThere was a time when I couldn’t abide baklava…way too sweet. Then by accident I tasted the real thing, and I’ve been a convert ever since. Anyone fancy a trip to south-central Asia?
READ ONLate last week reader Marciella sent in a question about marjolaine layers. In essence she asked: if these are supposed to be “meringues” why don’t the directions call for whipping the whites and the sugar together? I thought: well, that’s just an idiosyncrasy of marjolaine recipes. I’ve read through probably ten of them and not […]
READ ONIf I were to try to describe Joe Pastry heaven to you, it would go a little something like this: a warm spring afternoon, the kids and the missus are taking a nap. There’s a cold bottle of suds open, and a big ol’ pastry to build. That was my Sunday, friends, and here’s what […]
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