Cardamom and Tea

baharat (seven spice) + recipes

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“Baharat” simply means spices in Arabic, but often refers to a seven spice blend. Think of this one sort of like a Lebanese version of garam masala. The warm notes of coriander, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg give the blend a lovely well-rounded flavor.

A spice blend is the kind of thing that you make in a big batch and use over the course of a several months to a year (it will last closer to a year if stored in a sealed glass or stainless steel container). While it takes a small amount of effort up front, you’ll reap the benefits for a long time. If I’m cooking with this spice blend (as opposed to just sprinkling it), I usually temper it in oil over low heat for about 1 to 2 minutes, which gives it a toastier flavor. But it’s also delicious sprinkled as-is.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to use baharat / seven spice:

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baharat (seven spice) + recipes

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  • Yield: just over 1 cup

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup ground black pepper (3 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons whole peppercorns)
  • 1/4 cup ground paprika
  • 1/4 cup ground cumin seeds (1/4 cup whole cumin seeds)
  • 1/4 cup ground coriander seeds (1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds)
  • 2 tablespoons ground cloves (2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons whole cloves)
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (2 1/2 inch cinnamon stick)
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (1 small nutmeg) – optional
  • 1 teaspoon ground cardamom (8 to 9 cardamom pods)

Instructions

Combine ground spices and store in a resealable container (preferably glass).

Notes

If you’d like to make a larger batch, here are the ratios:

12 parts ground black pepper
12 parts ground paprika
12 parts ground cumin seeds
12 parts ground coriander seeds
6 parts ground cloves
2 parts ground cinnamon
1 part ground nutmeg (optional)
1 part ground cardamom

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shakshuka | beata’t tdamata

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Last month, my husband and I were getting ready for a big move. While I’ve always been a little on the fence about minimalism, we took this as an opportunity to dramatically pare down our belongings to just the essentials, and just things we really love.

It turns out, I really only need 4 pairs of jeans, 30 shirts, 3 skirts, 6 dresses, 5 jackets, and 5 pairs of shoes (hah! only…). It’s not exactly a capsule wardrobe, but it comes out to just a couple boxes, and it makes choosing outfits absolutely effortless. We’ve donated our CDs, DVDs, old paperbacks, old furniture, and so much more. But the one thing I just cannot part with is every single thing in our kitchen. Literally half the moving boxes are full of kitchen things.

I’ve always aspired to have the kind of kitchen that is a no-nonsense, well-stocked, practical and efficient, yet aesthetic space. But these boxes are seriously questioning whether I actually practice this ideal in my daily life, and I’m not entirely ready to admit that this is a problem.

Yesterday, we finally finished moving (now, just to unpack), but right before the move, we were stuck in limbo, since most of our stuff was packed in boxes, ready to be loaded on the moving truck, with nowhere to go for a couple more days. But at this point, I started to remember how silly and unnecessary most kitchen equipment is when you’re cooking really simple, delicious food. For instance, to make eggs and tomatoes, “beata’t tdamata” in Assyrian, all you need is a knife, a cutting board, a skillet, and a wooden spoon

Beata’t tdamata is the Assyrian name for shakshuka, a delicious North African and Levantine dish that many Americans know about through Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. There are many different ways to make eggs and tomatoes, bur according to Tamimi, the crucial factor is that you cook the eggs in the tomatoes instead of frying them on the side. But everything else varies from dish to dish. My take on beata’t tdamata has you fry the eggs in a thin layer of chunky tomato sauce, so that there is nothing left over after serving. But eggs and tomatoes—whether poached in a bucket of tomato sauce or fried on a thin layer of tomato chunks, whether tempered with spices or sizzled with garlic and onion, whether braised with greens or simmered with little meatballs—are always a perfect match.

For more shakshuka, visit my recipe for succotash shakshuka.

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shakshuka | beata’t tdamata

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  • Yield: 3 eggs

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon Lebanese spice blend (or equal parts black pepper, paprika, and cumin) + 1 pinch for garnish
1 1/2 cups diced tomatoes
Salt to taste
3 eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons crumbled feta
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped parsley
Serve with bread

Instructions

  1. Pre-heat a 10-inch frying pan over medium-low heat for two minutes.
  2. Add the tablespoon of oil, swirl it around in the pan, and add the spice blend. Cook, stirring frequently for 2 minutes.
  3. Add the chopped tomatoes and some salt to taste.
  4. Turn the heat to medium-high and stir the tomatoes around for about 4 minutes until they start to break down and turn into a chunky sauce.
  5. Spread the chunky sauce into one even layer (about 1/2 inch) and lower the heat to medium. Crack the eggs directly onto the tomatoes, sprinkle them with some salt, don’t disturb them, and immediately cover the frying pan with a lid.
  6. Set a timer for 4 minutes if you prefer very runny egg yolks, or 5 minutes if you prefer slightly runny, custardy egg yolks.
  7. Check the eggs by poking the white near the yolk with a knife and gently poking the yolk with your finger. If the whites do not ooze and the yolk still feels jiggly, they should be perfect. Once they are done, remove from the pan immediately. If the whites are not set, continue cooking them covered, checking every 45 seconds to see if they are done.
  8. Garnish with feta, parsley, and a pinch of spices.

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baklava frozen yogurt

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This spring, I’ve been making so much baklava (also known as baklawa). And I mean, really, a lot. I’m pretty obsessive about tinkering with and testing my recipes before posting them here, so I’ve lost track of the number of trays I’ve made in the last couple months while fine-tuning my recipes for cardamom baklawa and olive oil botanical baklawa. So I had to come up with some sort of baklava ice cream to use up all those leftovers.

Luckily, the baking method I use is super easy, so the “problem” with making heaps of baklava isn’t really the amount of time it takes, but the sheer quantity left over. In other words, when it’s as simple as slicing, pouring, and baking, it’s pretty easy to end up with way too much. After you’ve shared plates with friends, left some at the neighbors’ doors, stuffed plastic containers into your guests’ luggage, and eaten some for breakfast every day for a week, you need to figure out what to do with all those delicious leftovers.

That’s where baklava frozen yogurt comes in.

The key to making baklava frozen yogurt is to remember to freeze some leftover baklava next time you make a batch, so that you can easily make it into frozen yogurt later on. You know it’s time to freeze the leftover baklava once it starts to feel like a chore to have to finish the rest of the tray—at that point, stop what you’re doing (because eating should never feel like work!), freeze those leftovers, and enjoy them in frozen yogurt form after a few weeks, once baklava is a novelty again. But, honestly, this frozen yogurt is so good, I’ve baked baklava just so that I could have some left over to make this recipe.

If you’re using my recipe for cardamom baklawa, this frozen yogurt recipe will work well as is. But if you’re using another kind of baklawa or baklava, feel free to substitute the cardamom with something that works better with the particular baklava you’re working with. For instance, you might replace some or all of the cardamom with cinnamon, cloves, or allspice, and you might add a teaspoon or so of rosewater or orange blossom water to the yogurt. It’s entirely up to you.

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baklava frozen yogurt

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  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 25 1/2 to 28 hours (including the time it takes to chill the ice cream core)
  • Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

  • One quart plain whole milk yogurt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 11 ounces leftover cardamom baklava *
  • Special equipment: ice cream machine **

Instructions

  1. At least 24 hours before you plan to make the frozen yogurt, freeze your machine’s core.
  2. At least 1 hour before making frozen yogurt, coarsely chop the baklava and divide into 8 ounces (about 2 cups chopped) and 3 ounces (2/3 cups chopped). Freeze the chopped baklava.
  3. At least 1 hour before making frozen yogurt, put a 6 cup freezer-safe container in the freezer.
  4. Combine the chilled yogurt with the sugar, salt, and cardamom. This step can be done a day ahead of time and kept refrigerated or it can be done right before transferring to the machine.
  5. Once everything is properly chilled, freeze the yogurt mixture according to your machine’s guide.
  6. Once the frozen yogurt has thickened significantly and finished processing, stir in the 8 ounces (2 cups) of chopped, frozen baklava.
  7. Transfer the frozen yogurt to the frozen storage container and immediately cover and place in the freezer.
  8. Store the frozen yogurt in the freezer for 30 minutes for soft serve, or continue to freeze for about 3 to 5 hours for hard ice cream.
  9. To serve, top with the 3 ounces (2/3 cups) of chopped, frozen baklawa (some on the whole batch and/or some on individual servings).

Notes

* If you are using another kind of baklava, feel free to substitute another spice for the cardamom to better match your baklava’s flavor (e.g., allspice, cinnamon, rosewater, orange blossom water). Also feel free to use store-bought baklava.

** If you do not have an ice cream machine, you can use David Lebovitz’s method.

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meatball stew | kift’it gu shirwah

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A couple weeks ago, in early April, I spent the day at the beach with my friend, Anita. We spent the afternoon hanging and talking in between reading and grading midterm papers. It was surreal driving home and seeing no leaves on the trees after spending a beautiful, 85 degree, sunny day by the water. This week, the trees are greener, everything is in bloom, and it’s almost grape leaf season. But this week, in the meantime, it’s been pretty chilly and rainy, which is perfect weather for one last cozy stew, like kifteh’it gu shirwah.

While kift’it gu shirwah is more traditionally eaten in the fall, it is a lovely, warming dish to enjoy during these last few chilly days of spring. It’s got lots of bright vegetables and a lovely, light tomato broth. It doesn’t feel heavy like most winter stews, but it’s super filling and hearty, in a healthy way. The meatballs are made of ground beef and uncooked rice, which braise and steam as the stew cooks. The rice add a lovely texture to the meatballs and all of the flavors meld together as the dish cooks. Kift’it gu shirwah is really similar to kubbat shorba, but instead of wheat (bulgur or semolina), we use rice in the meatballs, so it’s a nice gluten-free alternative.

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meatball stew | kift’it gu shirwah

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  • Prep Time: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 50 minutes
  • Yield: about 6 servings

Ingredients

For the tomato sauce:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter *
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, medium diced
2 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground beef
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup minced light-green and white green onion parts (from about a bunch of green onions)
1/2 cup medium grain rice (e.g., Calrose)
1/2 cup packed minced parsley (from about 1/2 bunch)

To finish the stew:
3 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
2 cups boiling water
1 green bell pepper, large dice
2 small or 1 large unpeeled zucchini, large dice

Instructions

  1. Make the tomato sauce: Place a 4 to 8 quart stockpot over medium-low heat. Melt the butter in the olive oil and add the diced onion. Cook the onions, stirring every minute or two, for about 8 minutes until they lightly brown.
  2. Add the diced tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer, cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for about 12 minutes, until the tomatoes start to fall apart.
  3. Make the meatballs: While the tomatoes are cooking, prepare the meatballs: combine the ground beef, salt, pepper, minced green onions, short grain rice, and minced parsley. Shape the meatballs into about 25 small balls (about the size of ping pong balls).
  4. Finish the stew: Add the lemon juice to the diced tomatoes, return the heat to high, and simmer for 2 minutes.
  5. Add the meatballs to the tomatoes, top with the 2 cups of boiling water, cover and simmer for 2 minutes without stirring.
  6. Gently stir the meatballs, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for 10 minutes.
  7. Gently stir the meatballs, cover with the bell pepper and zucchini, reduce heat to low, and cook for another 15 minutes. The dish is done when the vegetables are soft and the meat and rice have cooked through to the center of the meatballs.
  8. Adjust the seasoning and serve. If you eat some left over the next day, you should stir about 2 to 3 tablespoons of additional water into each serving immediately before reheating (let it sit for about 2 minutes, stir, and then serve). The rice absorbs a lot of the moisture overnight.

Notes

* Substitute olive oil to make this dairy free.

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jajik

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If you’re at an Assyrian person’s house and you find a carton of cottage cheese in the refrigerator, you can be almost certain that there is no cottage cheese inside. 90% of the time, the cottage cheese has been replaced by jajik. If, on the off-chance, there is cottage cheese inside, don’t eat it, because it’s about to be turned into jajik, which is a hundred times better than cottage cheese, so either way, you’re in luck.

Jajik (also known as jajeek) is a simple, yet delicious, spread made from dairy with herbs or veggies. It’s very similar to many other Middle Eastern, south-Asian, and Mediterranean dairy-based dips and spreads, such as tzatziki, cacik, mastokhiar, and raita (to name a few). 

My family’s recipe only has four real ingredients and requires no special equipment or skills. While our recipe is pretty simple, some common additions include cilantro, parsley, green onions, banana peppers, garlic, and grated cucumber. Feel free to experiment with the recipe, adding any of these other traditional ingredients.

Jajik was one of my Baba Peter’s favorite things to eat for breakfast; he and my grandmother were always fans of savory and sweet. My grandmother sometimes eats her jajik on a Krispy Kreme doughnut and my grandfather would sometimes spread jajik and jam on a bagel. I have to admit, both are strangely perfect combinations, but I prefer plain old English muffins or lawasha. But jajik isn’t always eaten for breakfast—it’s also great for dinner (jajik chicken, and jajik chickpeas with rice) along with other mezes, like hummus and stuffed grape leaves.

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jajik

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★★★★★

5 from 2 reviews

  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Yield: about 3 1/2 cups

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 16 ounces small curd cottage cheese
  • Packed 1/4 cup chopped dill + 2 tablespoons for sprinkling on top
  • Salt to taste (I use 1/4 teaspoon)
  • Optional: olive oil for drizzling
  • For serving: pita bread, english muffins, or lawash

Instructions

  1. Let the cream cheese and butter come to room temperature. Once softened, combine the two until they are very well blended.
  2. Combine the cottage cheese with the butter/cream cheese mixture and salt to taste.
  3. Gently fold the 1/4 cup chopped dill into the mixture. Do not add the dill before this point or the whole thing will turn green.
  4. Garnish the jajik with the remaining 2 tablespoons chopped dill.

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masgouf | Iraqi grilled fish

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When my grandparents got married in 1958, my grandmother moved from a village near Al Hasakah in north eastern Syria to Baghdad. During their first few years together in the city, before they had children, they would often go out with a big group of friends to the restaurants on Shara Sadoun, on the Tigris River. There, they would enjoy an Iraqi delicacy: masgouf.

At these restaurants, you’d select one of the freshly-caught catfish swimming around in a big tank. The cooks would bring your fish to the kitchen to clean it and prepare it. And then they would cook it with onions and tomatoes outside over an open fire, where you would sit and enjoy the view of the fire and the river. They would serve the masgouf with fresh green onions, radishes, and parsley.

Masgouf was a big part of their lives in Baghdad, since my great grandmother, Yemmah Ettie, would cook the dish for the whole family every Friday. When they came to Chicago, they stopped making it because they didn’t have space to grill. But we’ve recently rediscovered masgouf and now make it all the time.

I’ve developed a recipe to explain the way my family makes masgouf, but you shouldn’t let it limit your imagination or your own traditions. There are a lot of other equally delicious ways to prepare this dish. And not everyone makes masgouf exactly the same way. Some add garlic and tamarind to the topping, and many people cook the tomatoes and onions into a paste beforehand. My family keeps it simple with a fresh tomato, onion mixture that we grill on top of the fish.

The ingredients list is very flexible. While catfish, carp, and other freshwater fish are traditional, you can use whatever white, lean fish is available to you, such as tilapia, cod, or branzino (pictured here). You just want to avoid things like tuna or salmon. You can use either a whole fish or fillets—it doesn’t make a difference. And check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s guide to shopping for sustainable seafood to help prevent overfishing.

Feel free to use whatever kind of tomato, onion, or curry powder you have around the house. My family likes to use yellow curry powders that have a lot of turmeric and fenugreek seeds. But red spice blends like Lebnese seven spices or another baharat blend would work great too. And don’t be ashamed of using a jar of generic yellow curry powder from the spice aisle of the supermarket. This is going to be good, no matter what.

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masgouf | Iraqi grilled fish

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  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 2 servings (can easily be multiplied)

Ingredients

For the fish and marinade:

  • 10 ounces white, lean fish fillets, –or- a 16-ounce whole fish, cleaned and butterflied
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

For the topping:

  • 1/2 cup large-diced tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons thinly sliced red onions (fill a quarter cup halfway)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder, divided into 1 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon
  • 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Pat the fish dry with paper towels, and place it in a large ziplock bag.
  2. For the marinade: Add the lemon juice, curry powder, olive oil, and salt to the ziplock bag, seal the bag and mix everything around by squeezing the bag a few times. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (or up to 4 hours ahead if you want to make it ahead).
  3. When you’re ready to cook the fish, preheat the grill. If you’re broiling, set the oven to broil 5 minutes before you’re ready to cook (all broilers work a little differently, so pre-heating times will vary).
  4. For the topping: Combine the diced tomatoes, sliced red onions, lemon juice, 1 teaspoon curry powder, olive oil, and salt.
  5. Take the fish from the marinade, do not pat it dry, place it on a grill-safe tray (with a rim if you’re using the broiler), and cover with the extra 1/2 teaspoon curry powder.
  6. Top the fish with the tomato mixture and grill or broil until the fish is flaky. Cooking times vary, depending on how big your fish is and how hot your grill is, but you can count on at least 6 minutes.

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buried cheese | gubta mtumarta

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My grandmother and I recently went about solving a cheese mystery. On her family‘s farm in north-eastern Syria, they would make a homemade cheese that they would bury under ground in clay pots. They called the cheese gubta mtumarta, which means “buried cheese” in Assyrian. The name tells you more about the way it’s stored, rather than giving any hint of the kinds of cheeses used, which didn’t help us much in backwards engineering her family’s recipe. But luckily, we had some information to go on, and we headed over to the Whole Foods cheese section to try to get to the bottom of things.

We knew that her family’s gubta mtumarta involved caraway seeds and some combination of three cheeses crumbled together. She remembered the method of preparation really well and remembered lots of details about the cheeses they would use, but it’s really difficult to figure out what cheeses to buy at a supermarket cheese counter in order to best emulate the flavors and textures of farm-made, unnamed Syrian cheeses.

Here was the information we had: The first cheese tasted like feta, but without the brine. It was a not-too-salty, medium-soft cheese that added a creamy texture to the mix, but without adding too much moisture. It bound the crumbly, hard cheeses together. The second cheese was a lot like parmesan–very salty, dry, and crumbly. The third cheese was similarly crumbly, but not quite as salty or hard, with a subtler flavor. The two harder cheeses would get ground up into little pieces and mixed together with the creamier cheese to form a crumbly paste. The harder cheeses would add enough salt to help preserve the softer one and the whole paste would get mixed together with caraway seeds to add a really lovely, distinct flavor that most Americans associate with rye bread.

We chose three Mediterranean cheeses for our recipe for gubta mtumarta. For the first, soft cheese, we chose manouri cheese, which is similar to feta, but without the brine and strong feta flavor. The second cheese was easy, since parmesan was the obvious choice. For the third cheese, we found a hard, aged provolone piccante with a little less salt than parmesan and a slightly higher moisture content.

We minced the cheeses finely and combined them with the caraway, and when she tried the finished product she said that she couldn’t wait to deliver some to her brother, Badel, because it was exactly like the gubta mtumarta that she remembered. While I never tried the gubta from their farm, I can confirm that this recipe is beyond delicious spread on toast, melted on a burger, sprinkled on biryani, or added to tabbouleh. On Easter, Yemmah Sourma would put a little cheese in the center of one of the samooneh before baking the rolls, and whichever kid got the cheesy samoon got an extra little gift for Easter. But if you ask me, getting the only samoon full of gubta mtumarta is a gift in itself.

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buried cheese | gubta mtumarta

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Ingredients

2.5 ounces parmigiano reggiano (or another hard, salty cheese, like pecorino romano)
4 ounces provolone piccante (or another sharp, somewhat salty cheese, like an aged asiago)
5 ounces manouri (or another soft, mild, crumbly cheese, like ricotta salata or a mild feta)
1 tablespoon caraway seeds

Instructions

  1. Mince the parmigiano reggiano and the provolone piccante (or other cheeses, if using) by hand or with a food processor. Don’t over-process the hard cheeses–there should be some crumbles that are the size of grains of rice and some the size of grains of sand.
  2. Once the hard cheeses have been ground up, crumble in the manouri (or other cheese, if using) and combine just until everything comes together into a coarse paste.
  3. Stir in the caraway seeds and store the cheese in a jar in the refrigerator. The length of time you can store the gubta will vary, depending on the kind of cheese you’re using, but with the three listed above, you can count on at least a week.

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samoon

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In the United States, Middle Eastern bread is almost always very flat. Pita and lawash have become so ubiquitous, you can always find one or the other in any major American supermarket. And I would never complain about this flatbread craze, since these breads are undeniably delicious. But all this is enough to make a person think that pita and lawash are the only two kinds of Middle Eastern bread, which is of course not the case. My family eats, bakes, and buys a variety of different Middle Eastern breads. But when one of us requests some “bread” without specifying which type, you can assume they mean samoon.

While samoon is primarily known as an Iraqi bread, it’s eaten in many different parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean. And with such a broad reach, samoon varies from place to place and doesn’t always look and taste exactly the same.

The market my family shops at in Chicago carries a version that’s very much like this recipe. But you’ll also find places with bigger seedless loaves that are cooked at a higher temperature and become slightly charred instead of golden.

Some versions of samoon even look almost like flatbread. Each variety is unique and absolutely delicious, but the thing that unites them all is their pointed oval shape. If you’re not one of the lucky ones who lives near a samoon bakery, you can use this recipe to make your own. But even if you have a samoon shop near you, nothing beats homemade bread.

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samoon

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  • Yield: 12 rolls

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 1/3 cups + 3 tablespoons tepid water, measured separately
  • 5 ounces wheat flour (about 1 cup)
  • 14 ounces white flour (about 3 cups)
  • 1 tablespoon yogurt or buttermilk
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1/4 c corn meal or semolina flour
  • Additional water for brushing
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Proof the active dry yeast with the sugar and 1 1/3 cups of the water until the water looks a little foamy on top (about 5-10 minutes).
  2. Add the wheat flour, white flour, yogurt, melted butter, and salt to a bowl (the bowl of a stand mixer, if you plan to knead by machine).
  3. Add the water/yeast/sugar mixture and stir until the dough starts to come together. If there is still a lot of flour or if the dough looks dry, gradually add 1 tablespoon of water at a time. The dough should be on the wet side; the dough ball should be a bit sticky, but it should hold together in a ball.
  4. Knead until the dough ball passes the window pane test. It should come together into a somewhat sticky elastic ball that has a smooth surface. Kneading should take about 5-15 minutes by machine with a dough hook, or 10-20 minutes by hand. Pay more attention to the dough’s consistency than the time you’ve spent kneading.
  5. Place the dough in a bowl, cover it, and let it rise at room temperature for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. It will rise noticeably. If it’s a little chilly in your kitchen (e.g., below 67° F), you might need to let it rise for about 15-30 minutes longer.
  6. Lightly flour a clean, food-safe work surface, divide the dough into 12 equal pieces, and shape each chunk into a round ball.
  7. Roll each ball into an elongated shape, sort of like a long football (see photo above). The ends should be a bit pointy. After you roll it into this shape, slightly flatten the football shaped piece with the heel of your hand. Pinch the ends of the football into points if they’ve become rounded.
  8. Sprinkle 1 or 2 sheet pans with corn meal or semolina and place the shaped loaves on the sheet pans, leaving a couple inches between each one.
  9. Brush each loaf with water and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
  10. Cover the loaves with plastic wrap and preheat the oven to 475° F.
  11. Once the oven has preheated and the loaves have risen for 30 minutes, bake them for 12-18 minutes, until they’re cooked all the way through and golden-brown on the outside.
  12. Cool on a wire rack.

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botanical baklawa (baklava)

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A few months ago, I was making quite a lot of buttery cardamom baklawa to make sure the recipe was absolutely perfect before posting it. Baklawa (also known as baklava) is the kind of thing where you make a huge batch and then share it with friends and family, so I was bummed that I couldn’t share any with my friend, Laura. She gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in October, and since she’s been breastfeeding, Laura has stopped eating dairy. So one day, when I was going on and on about baklawa (maybe it’s not surprising that this is something I tend to do), I asked Laura if she had any ideas for making it dairy-free, and she suggested replacing the butter with extra virgin olive oil. I was immediately intrigued because lemon olive oil cake is one of my favorite desserts—why not use the same flavors in baklawa?

So we got together to test out this theory, and as we suspected, olive oil works perfectly in baklawa. It somehow tastes even butterier than butter and makes all of the layers extra crispy, so they completely shatter with each bite. It might sound kind of strange if you’ve never tried using extra virgin olive oil in dessert, but trust me when I say that it absolutely does not make the baklawa taste like you drizzled it with a vinaigrette, or worse, kalamata olive brine. It just somehow works.

The olive oil adds another interesting nutty flavor to the walnuts and pistachios, especially when the pistachios are a little roasted. I decided to add rose, which is a very traditional baklawa flavoring, to contrast with these earthy flavors. Rose petals and rosewater add an intoxicating fragrance that brings out the botanical qualities of the olive oil, cardamom, cinnamon, and honey. When the fragrant honey and rosewater hits the earthy, crispy filo, walnuts, and pistachios, the whole thing smells like a rainy garden.

After our successful olive oil experiment, I called my grandmother, the woman who first taught me how to make baklawa, to tell her the exciting news about our innovation. She listened patiently to my story, and then casually broke the news to me, her millennial granddaughter, that this has certainly been done before. “We used to make baklawa with olive oil whenever the bishop or cardinal would come to our house. We would make everything with olive oil because they keep a vegan diet.” So there you have it: there is nothing new under the sun.

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botanical baklawa (baklava)

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  • Prep Time: 35 minutes
  • Total Time: 2 1/2 hours
  • Yield: approximately 3 to 6 dozen pieces (depending on how you slice them)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus an extra tablespoon for greasing
  • 16 ounces walnuts, about 4 cups medium-chopped
  • 5 ounces powdered sugar, about 1 cup
  • 1 tablespoon ground cardamom
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 16-ounce container of filo dough sheets (do not open until the recipe tells you to)
  • 16 ounces honey
  • 1 to 3 teaspoons rosewater (to taste) *
  • 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons finely chopped pistachios
  • 3 tablespoons crumbled edible dried rose petals (optional) **

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
  2. Use the extra tablespoon of olive oil to grease a rimmed sheet pan (at least 12″ x 16″).
  3. Combine chopped walnuts, powdered sugar, cardamom, and kosher salt, and set aside.
  4. Once everything is mixed together, open the filo dough container and place half of the filo dough on the sheet pan. Be careful to work somewhat quickly so that the filo dough does not dry out.
  5. Spread the chopped walnut mixture evenly over the filo dough.
  6. Place the rest of the filo dough on top of the walnut mixture.
  7. Cut the baklawa into diamonds by slicing straight across in the short direction, then diagonally in the other direction (see more instructive photos here). It’s best to work with a very sharp or serrated knife so that you don’t tear, stretch, or dishevel the filo. It’s alright if a few of the pieces go a little awry, but you want everything to stay pretty lined up.
  8. Drizzle the olive oil evenly all over the baklawa.
  9. Cook the baklawa in the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes, until it has lightly browned. (Start checking after 15 minutes of baking).
  10. While the baklawa bakes, gradually add the rosewater to the honey, until the honey is properly fragranced. The potency of rosewater varies a lot from brand to brand, and also depends on freshness, so taste as you go. You should be able to distinctly taste the rose, but it should not taste soapy or perfumey.
  11. Cool the baklawa at room temperature in the pan for about 5 to 10 minutes, until it’s still warm, but not radiating heat from the top. Once cooled to this point, immediately pour the rosewater honey evenly over the top.
  12. Immediately top with ground pistachios and rose petals.
  13. Let it sit until it comes to room temperature, at least one hour.
  14. Cut through the same lines you made before baking and serve. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or the freezer for up to 3 months.

Notes

* You can find rosewater at Middle Eastern or Indian markets. You can also find it online (just make sure you find an edible one, rather than a cosmetic one). Different varieties vary in strength, so you should taste as you go.

** Dried edible rose petals can be found in most tea or spice shops, or online. Most of the rose flavor in this recipe comes from the rose water, but if you leave these out, just add a touch more rosewater to compensate.

Note: If you have any leftover baklawa, you can freeze it and turn it into baklawa frozen yogurt. In the frozen yogurt recipe, add about a teaspoon of rosewater to the yogurt and substitute cinnamon for half of the cardamom.

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