BAKLAVA (Arabic)

INGREDIENTS:

• 14 ounces of phylo dough (about 24 sheets)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 7 ounces butter
• 9 ounces of dried fruits (eg pistachios, walnuts etc)
• Cinnamon powder (optional)
• Orange blossom water (optional)

The first thing to do is to clarify the butter. Low heat unsalted butter till melted and let stand for about five minutes, enough to form three layers. The superior layer is foam and you have to remove with a skimmer. The following is the layer that we are interested in preserving and split by simple decantation. In the fund we will have a whitish substance which is the serum of the milk. Simply reject it.
In the event that we have bought frozen phylo dough we should have thawed it in the upper part of the refrigerator, never out of it to prevent the sheets stick to each other and remain unusable. If you anyway decide to make your own pasta phylo, just let me applaud your courage. Now we're going to make the stuffing. There are two ways of doing so. The simple one I recommend is to mix some chopped nuts - pistachios and walnuts - with two tablespoons of sugar. The second, more complex, is to prepare a mixture with a tablespoon of orange blossom water, nuts, cinnamon powder and sugar. This mix presents the problem that is not advisable to fill phylo dough with wet stuff. In fact, it is totally undesirable and before using the second version of stuffing you should dry with absorbent paper. There is even a third way of making stuffing simply chopping the nuts, not to use sugar, and provide the sweetness with the syrup you will bath baklava later on. If you will not use syrup in no stage there is no other choice but to incorporate the sugar with the filling. Since I'm going to use syrup I will simply chop pistachios and nuts.
Now we're going to paint with clarified butter the bottom of a tray that can be baked. On that base deposite two sheets of phylo dough and paint it with butter. Then place another two sheets, paint again, and so on until we have a stack of 12 sheets (half of those available). Sprinkled on a uniform nuts to cover the entire surface and back to alternate two sheets of phylo with a coating of clarified butter until we are ready with all the phylo dough available. The top layer must be of course also painted so that it becomes golden when baked. Cut with a very sharp knife blocks of blakava – those will be the individual portions - either shaping in triangles or squares with the size of a mouthful.
Preheat the oven to bake at 420 ºF degrees and keep the baklava for 10 minutes. Then we low temperature to 350 ºF degrees and finish baking to a crisp and golden.
Let cool and cut away following the cuts we practiced before placing in the oven. Now we have to add the syrup.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SYRUP:

• 1 cup sugar
• Half a cup of water
• 1 tablespoon orange blossom water
• Juice of half lemon

The orange blossom water can be done so simply by buying flowers of orange blossom and boiling in water, although it is possible to find it in the section of pastry in large shopping centers. If you do not find, use rose water. Put the water in a saucepan with the sugar and medium heat until it boils. Let boil for 10 minutes, stirring the foam as it appears. Add lemon juice and leave to simmer for another ten minutes. Orange blossom water is added at the end. It is important to cover the pan because if the water evaporates we will make caramel, not syrup. With this warm syrup we bath the baklava that are obviously completely soaked, ready to serve.
I strongly recommend this recipe, even you just can try in any restaurant or arabic pastry. Baklava is one of the summits of the gastronomies of the World and I am not exaggerating.