Delicious Baklava with vanilla syrup (Baklawa بقلاوة )

Considering that over the last few months I have lived a sheltered life and barely stopped to notice the weather let alone follow current affairs or even family affairs for that matter, it was quite an achievement to go out for a family barbecue yesterday.  But even more so because I made not just one sweet to take - but two!  On top of that I even managed to make a video of the them!!!

Baklava with vanilla syrup (Baklawa بقلاوة  )

Well, there are no more daily trips to the hospital and no more sick kids to nurture through the day and night so even though I am seriously sleep deprived (my gorgeous bundle wakes me every hour and a half all night, most nights) I feel excited to have made a video.  The first for a while and it was the video I had intended to make the day I went to hospital for some monitoring of the baby and ended up having an emergency caesarean and was out of action for over a month.  That video was for Baklava with vanilla syrup (Baklawa بقلاوة  )

 Check it out here: 

Baklava (Baklawa  بقلاوة  ) is quite a well known Mediterranean sweet and can be found in Turkish, Lebanese and Greek restaurants but it has also become more mainstream in the last few years and available in many places.  While there are many ways to flavour Baklava with the use of vanilla, rose water and orange blossom water, the syrup may also be made with honey which adds a very distinct flavour also.  At home my mum made Baklava with vanilla and I too use vanilla whenever I make this dish, but then I absolutely love the flavour and aroma of vanilla so I cannot go past it for a flavouring in deserts or sweets.  I personally find rose water too strong in many versions of Baklava so I stick with the vanilla.  If you were to use rose or orange blossom water be sure to add a little to the syrup at a time and taste it as you go because it is always easier to add more than it is to try and tone down an overpowering flavour.  Start with a teaspoon at a time would be my suggestion.

Baklava with vanilla syrup (Baklawa بقلاوة  )

Anyway, back to the barbecue, I took the Baklava to lunch and considering it was family (who I would have thought would be over traditional Mediterranean sweets by now) I didn't expect a big response to my dish but I was pleasantly surprised.  Not only was most of it gone by the time I bothered to look, my step mother (bless her heart) told me it was perfect!!  Yay :)

So here it is, my perfect Baklava

Syrup:

2 cups/ 500g sugar

2 cups / 500ml water

½ lemon juiced

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

One quantity of syrup 
2 cups / 225g pistachio, walnuts or almonds, coarsely chopped

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon,

½ teaspoon ground cloves,

375g / 1 packet Filo pastry at room temperature

250g ghee, melted (or unsalted butter if you really cant get hold of ghee, better still, buy the butter and watch my video of how to make Ghee and make some yourself .  Check it out on YouTube here:

Make the syrup and leave to cool.  Preheat oven to moderate 180°C (350°F/Gas mark 4).  Brush the base and sides of a 30 x 25 cm cake tin with melted butter.  In a bowl combine the chopped nuts, sugar, cinnamon and cloves powder.  Remove a single sheet of Filo pastry at a time, fold each sheet in half and place in tray. Brush the top with butter and fold in edges to fit.  Repeat using half the packet of filo pastry making sure to brush with butter on each sheet, overlap and fold the sides where necessary.  Sprinkle the nut mixture over pastry and then continue to layer the pastry with the remaining sheets.  Pour remaining butter over the top.  Cut into diamond or square shapes, making sure to cut right through to the base.  Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until the Baklava is puffed and lightly golden on top.  Remove Baklava from oven and pour the cooled syrup over the hot Baklava    Leave to cool before cutting along the diagonals again to remove from the tray. 

Note : Cover remaining pastry with a damp tea towel to keep from drying out.  Baklava can be prepared days in advance, stored in the fridge and baked on the day they are to be served.  They will also keep for several days after baking in a cool oven or air tight container, but do not store in the fridge.

Baklava with vanilla syrup (Baklawa بقلاوة  )

Breakfast omelette the Mediterranean way (Eggah عجة)

Well, the past 2 months have been quite an experience and I am only now getting back to the things I was doing while I was pregnant.  Since it has been quite some time since I blogged or uploaded a video to YouTube I needed to reassess where I had left things. I had forgotten about this little treasure. It seems that one of the things I had planned was to write about a popular morning food - a breakfast omelette the Mediterranean way (Eggah عجة).  I had previously made a video which you can find on YouTube :

Breakfast omelette the Mediterranean way (Eggah عجة)

Typically eaten at breakfast this dish is akin to an omelette.  The parsley is the dominant fresh flavour and balances the egg and fried onion.  The beauty with this dish is the ease with which you can accommodate people.  The ingredients are simple and few so there is no difficulty in adjusting the quantities to suit the number of people eating.  This would be a great dish to keep in mind for a very quick and easy midweek dinner and could also be served sliced as part of a mezze platter which is great as it caters for vegetarians.

This breakfast omelette is a really healthy breakfast option.  It is high in protein from the eggs and in vitamin A from the parsley and you could easily replace the butter with cooking spray or use a non stick pan and omit it all together for a low fat option.  

Eggah takes me back to my childhood and breakfasts on a weekend morning when we were all home together.  Dad worked Saturdays so usually that was Sunday morning.  He would get up before everyone else and get together the most lavish breakfast compared to the working week breakfast options of toast or cereal.  On his breakfast banquet morning he would have Ful medames, Falafel, boiled eggs, fresh bread from the local bakery, along with an array of smaller plates containing, tomatoes, rocket leaves, feta cheese, sliced onions, olives and whatever else he could rustle up.  Sometimes he would stand in the kitchen and we could have eggs however we liked them.  Boiled, fried or like this a breakfast omelette was one of my mum's favourite egg dishes.

I had forgotten about it for years until one evening I was on the phone to my dad and he asked what was for dinner.  Too tired to think I said I had no idea and couldn't be bothered with much since there wasn't anything too exciting in the fridge but I still needed to get dinner on the table. He said "have you got eggs?", to which I said "yes there are eggs and not much else".  He said "have you got parsley?", to which I said there is some growing in a pot. He declared "Well, then you have eggah"!!

Breakfast omelette the Mediterranean way (Eggah عجة)

I made it that night for the boys and I was very pleased when they said they loved it.  I must remember to make this more often for them, or at least ring my dad on nights when I can't find anything much to cook so that he can remind me!!

I hope you like it too.

Serves: 3

5 eggs.

large bunch flat leaf parsley, washed and finely chopped.

1 onion, chopped.

Salt and pepper, to taste.

2 tablespoons butter.

1 tablespoon flour.

Melt half the butter in a fry pan over low heat, add onion and fry for 5 minutes until caramelized.

Add parsley and flour, and stir for 1-2 minutes.  Remove from heat.

In a bowl beat the eggs and season with salt and pepper.  Add the onion and parsley mixture and stir well to combine.

Heat a little butter in a fry pan and pour in a third of the egg mixture.  Cook until the bottom is golden before flipping over to cook the other side. Repeat with the remaining egg mixture.

This is great served hot with feta cheese and fresh Lebanese bread.

Breakfast omelette the Mediterranean way (Eggah عجة)

New Arrival

I had every intention of making a video last weekend and had all the ingredients and equipment out and ready on the kitchen bench.  I had decided that that was the priority for Saturday and thought it best to get the boys breakfast and dressed as quickly as possible so that they could go outside.  All that remained then was to get the filming done as efficiently as possible in the time that I had before the boys made their reappearance, after which nothing much more is usually accomplished.

Anyway, the best laid plans and all that, rather than doing a video the events of the day took their own dramatic turn which culminated a few hours later in the arrival of our baby girl!  Her sudden delivery 7 weeks early meant that not only were the plans for the video completely forgotten, but also plans for the week.

Now, one week later and I am completely and utterly consumed by the events of each day and there can be little time to contemplate much other than the basic necessities for the boys, myself and of course our new arrival.  With daily trips in and out of hospital to visit our baby, as well as the need to rest and heal from her delivery, the thoughts of cooking are put aside and the ability to make a video during this time is almost impossible.

So, stay tuned for updates and hopefully I will get around to posting a recipe and making a video sometime in the near future.

Lentil soup عدس Aatz

Well, firstly apologies for the inconsistent blog posts, this year has been very busy to say the least.  As I am pregnant with baby number 3 it has been difficult to keep up with activities of daily life looking after 2 boys as well as maintain the blog, cooking videos and undertake the challenge of running cooking classes while being either vomiting from morning sickness or restricted due to illness etc.

While I have had to reduce the time spent on the various projects and neglected the blog while I was planning, preparing and running the cooking classes, with the remaining few weeks before this baby arrives I have put classes on hold and can devote more time to the videos and blog instead.

The cooking classes were very successful and I had wonderfully positive feedback from the participants so I do look forward to running some more in the future.  In the mean time I have begun working on a video course that will be structured the same as for the Egyptian Cooking banquet course that I ran as a class.  This will take me several weeks to complete with the aim of completing it and getting it uploaded to UDEMY before the baby arrives!! So keep an eye out for that.  I will of course let you know as soon as it goes up.

I know that I promised a blog and video on Koshery some time back before I got a cold I couldn’t shake.  It left me very fatigued and I just couldn’t manage it.  I have not forgotten about it and do hope to get around to that soon.

As it is winter now, down here in the Southern Hemisphere, I often look forward to soup to warm our bodies and one very classic and tasty soup that I grew up with at home is a red lentil soup called  عدس Aatz.  Its combination of cumin and lemon are wonderful with the lentils.  Lentils are not a particularly popular but I did make this during one of the cooking classes and found that while most people thought very little of this pulse before tasting the dish once it was served the oohs and aahs were flowing and there seemed to be almost a surprise to some that lentils could produce something that tasted nice.

My mums’ way of making this involved using a special strainer where you turn the handle and the soup gets pushed through tiny holes.  I don’t have one and I did try pushing the soup through a strainer using a spoon but soon realised that was a huge effort and messy too.  Instead my way was to blend the soup using a stick blender which I love since it produces a wonderfully smooth soup.  The same result with half the fuss.

Lentil soup  عدس Aatz

Serves 6

Lentil soup  عدس Aatz

1 ½ cups / 300g red lentils

1 - 1½ litres chicken stock (depending on the consistency desired)

1 tablespoon ghee or butter

1 medium onion, chopped

½ teaspoon salt (if using stock taste before adding salt)

2 teaspoons cumin powder, or to taste

2 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste

To save on dishes I fry the onion in the same pot as I will cook the lentils in.  Melt the ghee or butter in the pot and add the chopped onion.  Fry on medium heat for 5 minutes or until browned. In the meantime wash the lentils and strain.  When the onion is cooked remove onto a plate and add the lentils and water to the pot. Bring it to the boil then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until cooked.  My parents put the soup through a hand strainer at home but I think it is far easier to use a stick blender and wiz it up until smooth.  Add cumin powder and lemon juice. Check for seasoning before adding salt.  Mix well then serve with the fried onion on top.

This can be served in a bowl as a soup with fresh Lebanese bread on the side for dipping, or several loaves of Lebanese bread can be dried, broken into small pieces and mixed with the soup.  To do this split the bread into halves, place in preheated moderately hot oven 200°C (400°F/Gas mark 6) for 10 -15 minutes or until bread is dry and lightly browned.  Break into small pieces in a large bowl and add the lentil soup over the top. Mix and serve.

Lentil soup  عدس Aatz

Cooking Banquet

Well, the where has the time gone!  Saturday May 25, I will be running another cooking class.  This time it is to be a banquet of sorts.  Over 4 hours the course participants and I will be preparing dishes from dips to BBQ kofta to mahshi and of course what better way to end than with a sugar high from sugar syrup drenched sweets.  I am really looking forward to Saturday and hope that the weather is kind enough so that we can enjoy our BBQ cooking outdoors.

I have also had a request via YouTube to make Koshery.  A carbohydrate loaded dish that is very popular in Egypt and served in restaurant setting as well as "fast food".  This dish is typically Egyptian even though it is known all over the Middle East.  My father said the most commonly asked question asked of him when he had his shop which sold all kinds of products commonly used in Middle East cooking was"How do you make Koshery?".  I will endeavour to fulfil this request the week following the course so keep an eye out for that.

If you would like to keep up to date with the latest videos you can subscribe to my YouTube channel at :

https://www.youtube.com/user/DynasEgyptianCooking

If you have a request or a comment please feel free to do so either below or on YouTube and I will get back to you.

Meatballs in tomato sauce كفتة بالدمعة Kofta bil dema-a

I was looking through the massive amount of cooking footage I still have on the computer and discovered a gem.  While our second child was still a baby and not a toddler I made Meatballs in tomato sauce   كفتة بالدمعة  Kofta bil dema-a.

I have always enjoyed eating good tasting meatballs and Kofta  كفتة   is basically an Egyptian meatball.  Kofta can be made so many different ways and it can be fried, or barbecued  or cooked in a tomato based sauce and left to simmer away absorbing flavours on the stove (or this can be done in a slow cooker).  

The key, as with any type of meatball, is to make sure they are browned first as this seals the meatballs and stops them from falling apart in the cooking process.

When I went back and watched the footage I got to reminisce and enjoy those memories from when the kids where so little.  I think this must be one of my favourites, if not my favourite video.  Take a look and let me know what you think...oh, and the food too!

We always had Meatballs in tomato sauce   كفتة بالدمعة  Kofta bil dema-a with rice but I know that many people eat meatballs with pasta.  These could easily be eaten served over pasta if you like.  But at home it was rice.  I love the rice soaking up the sauce and I often used to mush up the meatballs and stir it all together through the rice.  I do that for the kids and they love it.  

As with most things feta cheese, olive and a green salad at the table and it is a complete meal.

Love to have your feedback so let me know how you go making this.

Kofta Barbecued

Fried Kofta

Meatballs in tomato sauce   كفتة بالدمعة  Kofta bil dema-a

Pulses and grains

It has been a while since we had some vocabulary.

Today I thought we could focus on pulses and grains.

Pulses                                       Albekol                                                    البقول

Black eyed peas/beans            Fasolia Ein Sodah                            سوداء عين الفاصوليا

Broad (fava) beans                  Fasolia aredah                                        (فافا) الفاصوليا

Grain (cereal)                          Hebob                                                       حبوب

Chickpeas                               Homoss                                                   الحمص

Lentils                                     Adss                                                          عدس

Rice                                        Roz                                                          الأرز

Vermicelli                               Shereiah                                                     الشعيرية

Pasta                                      Makarona                                                معكرونة 

Black eye peas are soaked overnight then cooked with meat in a tomato based sauce.

Broad (fava) beans, Fasolia aredah, (فافا) الفاصوليا

Broad beans are used to make the ever popular Ful Medames.  Such a great way to eat broad beans, the slow cooked beans are then flavoured with oil, lemon, salt, garlic, and served with finely chopped onion, tomato, cucumber as well as feta cheese and eggs as an optional extra. For more details check out my previous entry (http://dynasegyptiancooking.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/slow-cooked-beans-ful-medames.html).


Rice was a staple in our household.  Made fresh almost daily to go along with pretty much anything.  We often used vermicelli as it can be fried in butter or oil before the rice and water is added.  As part of the rice dish, it adds colour and flavour.

Vermicelli     Shereiah    الشعيرية

Rice is served with most main dishes including Tabikh (dishes cooked in a pot on the stove).  Our equivalent of meatballs was served with rice rather than pasta, and while there are several dishes which contain other Carbohydrates such as pasta or potatoes, rice is still an accompaniment.

Rice    Roz    الأرز

I still love eating rice, especially with salad and a simple dressing of oil, salt and lemon.  And feta cheese.
yum.

fata wi ros (Bread with rice)

Baked fish with bulgur grains

Grilled fish with red rice (Rice in tomato sauce)