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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
By SARAH RINGLER
For a year I lived in the basement of a house owned by a Serbian family in Vancouver, British Columbia. The couple had a son the same age as mine and they used to play together often. Soon, the woman, Zivka, and I started to spend time together. Her English was limited and my Yugoslavian was nonexistent so we mostly communicated through food. She showed me how to make a few dishes and she was the first person I ever saw who actually made her own filo, a thin pastry that is layered and stacked or wrapped around a filling. After making an elastic dough, she stretched it over a square table that was covered with a floured tablecloth. She then cut it into squares and after brushing it with melted butter, layered it into a pan. I unfortunately, do not have that recipe written down.
I buy it ready made from the store. There are a few tricks to using it. It dries out very quickly causing it to break into unusable flakes. Also, any contact with water causes the sheets to stick together. Once either of these things happen, it is impossible to repair the damage.
I open the package carefully and place the filo between two clean dishtowels. I keep it constantly covered and work quickly so it doesn’t dry out. When I’m brushing on the butter, I put a individual piece onto a cookie tin and then move it to the baking pan. You will have some filo leftover from this Bastilla recipe. You can then make the baklava with the rest of it or freeze it.
Bastilla is a Moroccan dish famous for solving the chicken and the egg mystery by having both in one dish.
Bastilla
1 broiler-fryer chicken, whole or cut up
2 medium onions
6 cups chicken broth or water – if you use water, you will have to salt the chicken and egg mixture to taste
1 cup minced parsley
1cinnamon stick about 3 inches long
1 teaspoon grated ginger
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon saffron threads
6 eggs
8 sheets of filo
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup finely chopped blanched almonds
Powdered sugar and ground cinnamon
Place the chicken in a large Dutch oven along with chopped giblets, onion, broth, parsley, cinnamon stick, ginger, pepper and saffron. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the chicken pulls easily form the bones, about one hour.
Lift the chicken pieces from the broth and allow to cool. Then remove and discard the skin and bones. Shred the meat into bite site pieces.
Bring the broth to boil over medium heat. Lightly beat the eggs. When the broth is boiling, slowly pour the beaten eggs into the broth, stirring continuously until curds form. Then, pour the mixture through a fine strainer placed over a large bowl. Save and freeze the broth for other uses. Discard the cinnamon stick.
Open the filo package and keep it covered while assembling the bastilla. Don’t let it get wet or too dry. Melt the butter. Brush the bottom and sides of a deep 10 inch pie or cake pan. Lightly butter one full sheet of filo and place it across the pie pan. Take another sheet of filo and place it perpendicular to the first piece, buttering it and draping it across the pie pan. Prepare the next 4 sheets of filo in the same way making a large circle with sheet of filo radiating out from the center of the pan.
Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the filo. Top evenly with the chicken pieces pushing it down into the pie pan. Then cover the chicken with the egg mixture. Next, add the almonds. Fold the sheets of filo over the filling making a round pillow. Brush with melted butter. Take the remaining 2 sheets of filo, folding each in half and spread over the pillow you just made making the top smooth. Brush the top with butter.
Bake 20 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven or until golden brown. Shake pan to loosen pie. Hold an unrimmed baking sheet loosely over the top of the pie and invert the pan. Return the pan to the oven and bake until golden, about 10 more minutes. Invert pie onto a platter and let sit for 5 minutes.
Sift powdered sugar over the top and then decorate with crisscrossing lines of cinnamon. Serves 8.
Baklava
The rest of the box of filo or about 2/3 box
1 cup melted butter
Filling
2 cups finely chopped walnuts
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Syrup
1/3 cup honey
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
½ stick cinnamon
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Combine the filling ingredients and set aside.
Then make the syrup. Mix all the ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Set aside.
Butter and 8-inch square pan. Prepare the filo by taking one sheet and putting it on a cookie sheet. Brush butter on an approximately 8 inch square piece. Fold the butter square over the unbuttered part making a two-layer piece that is still 8 inch square. Cut off the remaining piece and place the folded sheet into the pan. Butter the top. Alternate by using the smaller leftover pieces in between the folded sheets butter each side as you go.
At about half way through the rest of the filo package, add the nut mixture and 2 tablespoons of the syrup.
Continue on with buttering the sheets of filo and placing them in layers in the pan. The pan should be nearly filled. Press down and pour remaining butter, if there is any, on the top.
Next, with a sharp knife, score the pastry about 3/4 inch deep into diamond shapes.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and bake until golden, about 45 minutes. Watch carefully so you don’t burn it and you may have to lower the heat.
When completely baked and golden brown, remove from the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes. Now, carefully continue cutting the pastry diamonds all the way through to the pan. Spoon the cool syrup over the hot pastry a little at a time. Let stand for several hours before serving. It can be stored in a covered container for several weeks.
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