Syrian-style Baklava (Parade of Pies, Part 5)

**So it’s not a pie in the usual sense, but baklava is pastry stuffed with nuts, sweet syrup, and butter. The pie spirit is there. And really, who would complain about getting baklava?**

Growing up I never knew that there was more than one kind of baklava. The sticky, crispy, little diamonds with pistachio and that hint of rose water were the only ones I knew. Later, I found out that baklava comes in countless shapes and sizes, with different fillings and sweeteners. Every culture that makes it (think Mediterranean) makes it differently. Heck, every family probably makes it differently.

A few years ago, I happened upon a Turkish bakery on the East side of Manhattan that offered about a dozen varieties: baklava filled with pistachios, walnuts, even sour cherries and other dried fruits. Some were shaped like squares, others like small round nests, and still others rolled up like cigars. Jen and I bought two pieces of each to take home and slowly devoured them. They were absolutely delicious, crunchy and sticky sweet, but not the baklava I remembered from childhood.

If you think you don’t like baklava, please try these. The honey flavor that most people associate with what could be a too-sweet dessert is replaced by a lite simple syrup flavored with rose water. When you make them yourself, you can control how much syrup is used, so they don’t have to be too sweet if you don’t want them to be. When I make them, I probably use two-thirds to three-quarters of the syrup most people use. Just enough to flavor the pastry without completely saturating it. This way, they are the perfect complement to a heavy meal., and no one can eat just one.

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Tangy Bulgur Salad and New Foods

We were recently invited to a potluck lunch with an ingenious theme: “New Foods.” The host wanted guests to bring foods that would most likely be new to him, and hopefully the other guests. I gave the challenge a lot of thought. I eat a lot of weird things, so I had plenty of options. But I wanted the food to be new to me as well, at least in preparation if not in flavor. So my thoughts immediately turned to Syrian food, which contains many familiar elements of other Middle Eastern cooking, but often goes a little more savory and tangy than sweet.

While most people are familiar with some Middle Eastern flavors, I often find that Syrian food, especially the cuisine originating in Aleppo, is really unknown outside of that ethnicity. That probably has to do with the fact that most Jewish Syrians live in the New York area, and there are very few Syrian restaurants. In my family, all the best cooks cook for family functions and their homes are like exclusive restaurants, though none of them cook professionally. I think this has to do with the way that cooking for people you love might be different than cooking for customers. What it amounts to though, is that unless you have a Syrian friend, you probably won’t get to taste a lot of the more unique Syrian dishes.

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Bittersweet’s Chocolate Chickpea Spread

Move over Nutella, I’ve found a chocolate spread that’s richer, thicker, cheaper and easier to get my hands on. I’m not sure I’ll ever look back.

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Warm Creamy Peanut Chicken Salad

This isn’t the prettiest chicken salad out there, but really what chicken salad is? This salad is really easy to throw together after a long day and is great warm or cold. You can go as gourmet or as instant as you like by using fresh chicken, fresh grated ginger and garlic, or canned chicken and dried spices, respectively. No matter how you do it (I’ve whipped up dozens of variations myself), this chicken salad packs a satisfyingly flavorful punch.

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Almond Butter Cookies

My favorite cookies growing up were Syrian butter cookies called “greybeh” in Arabic. My grandmother would serve them for dessert on a doily sprinkled with powdered sugar. The delicate cookies were shaped like bracelets and would usually have a pistachio pressed into the area where the two ends of the dough overlapped. They would melt in my mouth, with a hint of sweetness and the creamy taste of butter.

I was always convinced that they had almond paste in them because they tasted so much like marzipan (one of my other favorite childhood treats). When I finally got a hold of a recipe for greybeh, I realized that bits of almond would transform the simple little cookies into a heartier biscuit that would hold up when dipped into milk or tea.

Note: The original recipe for greybeh does not include rosewater, but I find that it adds a depth of flavor I really enjoy. If you don’t have any, feel free to leave it out. You can find a more authentic recipe in Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jews by Poopa Dweck.

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Almond Milk

After a recent trip to the local wholesale warehouse, we ended up several pounds of almonds, pecans and walnuts on our hands. Emily over at Dragonfly: Tales from the Phantom Rickshaw posted a recipe for almond milk that sounded like such a simple and tasty use for almonds, I just had to try it. Good news: it was just as easy as she described. Bad news: The pureed almond bits were a little too much for me to handle drinking, and were also too voluminous for me to simply toss in the trash. Solution: almond cookies to go with the almond milk.

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Spicy Peanut Butter Cookies

Another cookie recipe! For some reason my mind is obsessed with cookies at the moment, even though I don’t really love them as a food group. These cookies, however, are much more my style. They are peanuty, spicy and just a little bit sweet. The best part is they are much easier to bake than any other cookie I’ve tried. If you’re like me and don’t usually love sweet treats, try these and let me know what you think.

I haven’t made these in a while, so I don’t have a picture. They look like slightly flatter and darker versions of regular peanut butter cookies. Update: Made these the other day, so I’ve added a photo.

Note: This recipe does not double well. Mix single batches up one after another or in separate bowls. For some reason, every time I’ve doubled this recipe the consistency comes out all wrong. Also, I’m not kidding in the ingredients list; don’t use a jumbo-sized egg.

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Flourless Chewy Chocolate Brownie Cookies

I’m not much of a sweet tooth. I would almost always reach for seconds of my dinner instead of dessert. My love for the savory shows up in the food I try to cook. I rarely bake, and when I do, my favorite thing to bake is bread. Sometimes, though, a good cookie can pull me over to the sweet side. Especially if the cookie is more like an gooey, fudgy brownie in disguise.

This recipe originally came from “America Cooks,” a staple in our kitchen, but I’ve tweaked it a tiny bit and added explanations and tips to the instructions.

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