Baklava

Here’s another Mediterranean favorite of mine. There is a Turkish restaurant next to our house and I keep popping in for this one and kunafe. So it was obvious of me to decide to give this a try at home..It’s easy but sure needs some patience and time.

Before I start with the recipe let me tell you a few things that you might want to keep in mind when you make this super delicious dessert. Your filo pastry should be at room temperature to start. Please follow the instructions on the box for defrosting. Its usually taken off the freezer, left in the fridge overnight and at room temperature for atleast 3-4 hours. As the pastry sheets are very delicate be a little careful. But don’t worry if the pastry sheet tear a bit; you would be buttering each sheet and that acts as a glue. When grinding the nuts make sure they are coarser and uniform. Use a sharp knife to cut the filo sheets.

You need –

Filo pastry – at room temperature
Unsalted Butter – 100 grams

For the filling –

Blanched almonds – 1/2 cup
Pistachios – ½ cup
Walnuts – ½ cup
Sugar – ¼ cup
Rose water – 2 teaspoons

For the sugar syrup –

Sugar – 1 cup
Lemon juice – 2 tablespoon
Water – ¾ cup

How to –

Pre-heat the over to 180c. Melt the butter and set aside.
Filling –
Put the nuts, sugar, rose water in a processor and grind till coarser.
Sugar syrup –
Put the sugar and water in pan. Bring to boil and then reduce the flame and simmer for about 5 to 6 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the lemon juice and set aside.

Assembling the baklava –

Spread the filo pastry sheets on a counter, take the pan you are going to bake the baklava in and trim filo sheets to fit the pan accordingly.
Butter the pan. Take a sheet of the pastry and place in the pan. Butter the sheet and continue till you have buttered half the sheets ( my box of the filo pastry had 28 sheets, so I layered 14 sheets).
Fill the middle layer of the pastry with the filling leaving a little ridge around the edge and continue to layer the sheets, bushing each sheet with butter.
With long sharp knife carefully cut the baklava to your desired shape, square or diamond.
Bake them for about 40-50 minutes or till they are golden brown.
Pour the syrup over the warm baklava; let it soak, uncovered, at least 6 hours or overnight.