This week Where in the world took us to Greece where, in a moment of madness, I decided to make Baklava (having zero experience of handling filo pastry).
I have taken a fair bit of stick on this forum for my dedication to using grams as my only unit of weights and measures when cooking. I have discovered another situation where it has come in handy.
The recipe I found on the ‘net was for 450 grams (1 pound) of filo pastry. The filo pastry I was able to buy in E Leclerc only weighed 250 grams (more than enough for only two people) but, as everything had been reduced to grams, it was easy to scale down all the other ingredients.
Basically I needed to take one sheet of filo at a time, brush with melted butter then add the next sheet. When a third of the pastry had been used, a layer of nuts n stuff is spread out. This is repeated for a second third of the pastry where another layer is spread before completing with the final third. The problem is knowing when you have reached one third of the number of sheets.
The difficulty with filo pastry is that after taking it from the ‘fridge and waiting 30 minutes to get to room temperature, you have to work fast and keep it covered with a damp towel to prevent it drying out and becoming difficult to work with. Obviously counting the individual sheets is impossible and even eyeballing the block into three portions is not ideal.
The solution is simple. Place a chopping board on the scales and set it to zero. Place the block of filo sheets on the board and take the reading (say 250 gr). Divide that value by three ( 83 gm). Reset the scales to zero. Now start the layering and buttering process. After the first sheet you will see a negative reading of the weight of one sheet (say -12 gm). Then after the second sheet it will read -24 gm. Keep repeating until you reach close to -83 gm (one third of total) then apply layer of nuts. Zero the scales again and repeat for the next -82 gms.
A simple solution. Much easier to execute than to explain.
For a second there I thought you were making your own filo! A process I have watched (very exciting) but never attempted.
I take a far simpler approach. I open the filo packet and one can easily count the sheets at a corner without unrolling the whole thing to expose sheets to air. Depending on brand normally 8 or 12.
I’m still at a loss as to why anyone wouldn’t always use the tare key on their scales in normal circs and even more as to why in the overwhelming majority of cases someone wouldn’t use grammes.
(But I suppose if you can remember pounds and ounces and they mean something to you it is ingrained, like old money or inches. American cup measures are handy for American recipes, especially if baking with small children - it does require a set of proper cup measures though.)
Michel Oliver wrote a fantastic book for French children in the early 1960s where you cut out and glued a paper template for a measure and found what in your parents’ kitchen corresponded to its volume, then used that and teaspoons or knifepoints and nothing else. There were no digital scales in those days and the book was aimed at 5 or 6 to maybe 12 year-olds. The recipes were designed accordingly.
Yup, it’s a Mediterranean dessert, and quite delicious though full to overflowing with sugar. A more exotic version will add rose water among other things.
For rosewater you can substitute a drop or 2 of rose geranium essential oil. And Lidl do shelled unsalted pistachios. In ME Arabic Baklava is pronounced bè’léwé. (Same stress pattern as banana in English).
Don’t take it too personally - it can be hard to leave something alone when it’s stated in dogmatic terms, and so it was seen as an invitation for some gentle teasing.
Interesting idea though. I’ve cooked Greek mains in the past but not tried the sweets.
I appreciate your comment AM but it was just my clumsy way of saying that I know not everyone agrees with me and I know I can be very dogmatic about some subjects (EVs for example.) It is all part of the forum banter.
