Jari decided that this year, we would put together a "Bethlehem Dinner" and invite some friends over. I am not sure where the idea came from, perhaps from listening to the Primary sing the song "When Joseph Went to Bethlehem" so many times. We thought about "...bread and goat cheese in a little linen sack..." but decided goat cheese might not be well received by the young children that would be joining us. In the end, this was our menu:
1. Fish (Salmon, fairly kid, and adult-friendly, even for those who are not real big fans of fish) 2. Olives 3. Cucumbers 4. Humus 5. Flat Bread (We made Naan without the garlic) 6. Grapes 7. Grape Juice 8. Baklava
Now I am sure there are some of you saying to yourselves, "Self, Naan is an Indian Bread, and Baklava is Greek! Are these people crazy? That has nothing to do with Bethlehem!" You are of course correct, but we had some little kids coming for dinner and needed to keep things kind of simple. Besides Baklava has nuts and honey in it (both scriptural) and the gospel was preached to the Greeks. So I think we are safe. As for the Naan - it is delicious and made it so we did not have to buy Pita Chips.
This post however is about my Baklava Experience.
Where does Baklava come from? The bakery section in the store of course! So that is where I went to find our desert. After all, I had to get some more Chickpeas/Garbonzo Beans for the Humus so we had to go to the store anyway.
I searched all over and finally found a little container of Baklava: $10 for 8 small pieces. What?! That seemed kind of steep so I quickly looked up a recipe on Allrecipes for Baklava - it looked kind of simple and only required an hour and a half... but what was phyllo dough? I remember Playdoh from my childhood but Phyllo dough was new to me. I asked another store associate who directed me to the freezer section and to my great joy, it was on sale! 16oz for only $3. So with my phyllo dough in hand I started home (after paying for it of course).
This is the phyllo dough (spelled fillo as well as you can see). It comes in two bags, 8 oz each. I only used 1 bag and saved the rest for another occasion.
You can google a dozen recipes, but here is a basic that works (and is also the one I used:
Here is 8 oz of dough cut in half. I put some damp paper towels over them when I was not working on them so they would not dry out. I melted some butter and started painting layers together as the recipe above indicates. Simple and surprisingly therapeutic.
Next came the nuts. I used about half walnuts and half nut mixture from Target (Archer Farms, no peanut mixture). I forgot I had a scale in the kitchen so I just kind of chopped until I was satisfied. If you have a chopper like this one this part will be easy. I would recommend chopping them extra-fine unless you like big chunks of nuts. Once chopped, just add the cinnamon and stir. You are then ready to layer the nuts and phyllo dough.
From here on out it is pretty simple: some nuts, then two sheets of dough painted with butter, nuts, then two sheets of dough painted with butter, etc. Finally top it off with 8 or so sheets of dough.
The next step is to chop your baklava into whatever shape you want to serve. I used a butcher knife for this. As you can see, I only used a 9X9 pan (half of what the recipe calls for). From there, toss it in the oven and wait.
The Baklava will come out golden and looking scrumdiddlyumptious (not so chocolate-like, but yummy nonetheless). While it is cooking, mix up the sauce as described in the recipe link above. I made about 3/4 of what it called for for the whole recipe because half was not much liquid. In the end, I used about 1/2 of the full recipe so just follow the recipe. Once the Baklava comes out, you just spoon it over the top and let it sit.
And here is what mine looked like when I was done. Is it healthy? Of course not, but at least it does not come with as many preservatives as you would get from the store. And now I know how to make Baklava. So yeah for making things at home. Fun to make, and more fun to eat.
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