LoveTheJourney

Reader Kasia writes:
Janissaries might have needed appeasement because they were originally forced draftees, mostly very young Christian boys from occupied countries, who were trained to become killing machines against their own country men, were forced to convert to Islam and not allowed to have any life outside the barracks until retirement, if they lived that [...]

Reader Scott submitted that question last week and I forgot to get to it. As far as I know there are two different ways of making filo dough. One is to simply roll it, which is the way commercial manufacturers do it, starting with a fairly stiff dough and employing a machine that’s analogous to [...]

Had a few good questions come in over the long weekend about clarified butter. Reader Ken asked if the “proteins” I mentioned in the baklava post are the same thing as “milk solids” and if so, what sorts of proteins they are. These are the sorts of questions I live for.
“Milk solids” are [...]

Reader Brent writes:
Can you address sticking filo? Every time I work with it, the sheets stick together and rip, and what I end up with is an approximation of what I can buy. Is the trick in the filo defrosting? I usually do so in the refrigerator, but maybe I should actually bring it to [...]

My style of baklava is nut-heavy, as you can see. I like it that way, though it does produce a baklava that isn’t easy to eat according to formal Turkish baklava etiquette. If you’re a stickler for formality, cut down the nuts. The result will be pieces of baklava that are easier to spear with [...]

For those of you who are inclined to doubt the ritual/political significance of pastry in general and baklava in particular, I offer for your consideration the Baklava Procession. The Baklava Procession — and this is no joke — was an elaborate military ceremony in which the Ottoman Sultan’s private guardsmen, known as janissaries, would parade [...]

Baklava is the only pastry I know that has its own formalized etiquette, which turkishculture.org describes in this way:
For the initiated, eating baklava has its own rules. Separating the top and lower layers, or cutting through the lozenge shaped pieces with a knife or fork is frowned upon. Instead you should first leisurely survey the [...]

I’ve gotten a little, what’s popular business lingo now…”push back” on yesterday’s post attributing baklava to the Turks. Pastries layered with nuts hail from Azerbaijan! Dough stretching techniques were first invented by the Greeks! Spices are a clear contribution of the Arabs! Some of these claims hold more water than others, however it’s beyond dispute [...]

It’s interesting that with so many peoples around the Central Asian region claiming baklava as their own, that almost all of them use the same word to describe it. So where does that word come from? Most linguists believe it’s Mongolian, which adds weight to the Turkish origin argument, since before they settled in Anatolia, [...]

Well, no, but not because I don’t approve of it. Rose water is a traditional baklava flavoring that’s still quite common, even here in the US. I didn’t include it because it’s not easy to get outside of large cities. However if you have access to some, add a teaspoon to your nut mixture. Some [...]