Baklava

I decided to make the baklava a full week in advance of my big Greek Easter meal. For two reasons. One, there just isn't a lot of free time in the evenings before Greek Easter, after this weekend, to get everything ready. And two, Thursday is the Edible Book Festival at the UO Library, and I need a piece of baklava for one of my entries.

Baklava (μπακλαβάς and pronounced bahk-lah-VAHS) is perhaps the most well-known Greek food. Well, let's not forget about gyros. But still. It is a simple recipe that can be anything but to assemble. Layers of phyllo dough, painted with clarified butter, a layer chopped walnuts, all soaked in a sweet rose-flavored syrup. The really daunting part of making baklava is working with the phyllo.

Sugar and water are boiled for a couple minutes and then two tablespoons of rose water are added just before removing from the heat. This is allowed to cool and then refrigerated until needed.

Process a couple cups of walnuts and two tablespoons of rose water in a food processor until very fine. Set aside.

Two cups of unsalted butter are clarified. I don't know any short-cuts for this. I simply use a spoon and skim the solids that rise to the surface while the butter is heated. There are still some solids at the bottom of the pan, so I carefully pour the clarified butter off into a bowl. If solids get into the clarified butter, they will burn and blacken when the baklava is baked.

Phyllo dough is paper-thin and dries out quickly, so a damp (not wet, just slightly damp) towel is laid over the sheets of dough while assembling the baklava.

Now the tough part. Brush some of the butter into a baking pan. Then lay a single sheet of phyllo in the bottom of the pan, cover the remaining sheets with the towel and brush butter on the sheet in the pan. Repeat this again and again and again until half the phyllo has been used. Then evenly spread the walnut and rose water mixture over the top. Then, you guessed it, back to the phyllo layers. Place a sheet, cover the rest, butter. Repeat until all the sheets have been used.

With a knife, carefully cut through the assembled baklava, first lengthwise in one-inch strips, and then on a bias to form the traditional diamond shapes. Actually, mine come out looking more like parallelograms. No worries. This is not a geometry exercise. Pour the remaining clarified butter over the top and spread it evenly with the pastry brush.

The pan goes into a 350° oven for 30 minutes. The temperature is then raised to 425° for an additional 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and pour the chilled sugar and rose water syrup evenly over the top. It will sizzle. Enticingly.

Bon appétit!