Kataifi

I must confess, I have quite the sweet tooth, and this dessert is an absolute favorite of mine!

Kataifi is a delightful sweet treat that shares its popularity with Greek, Turkish, and Middle Eastern cuisines, much like baklava. It's a delectable dessert crafted from coarsely chopped walnuts (I use a mix bag of nuts), infused with the aromatic flavors of ground clove and cinnamon. This nut mixture is delicately wrapped in buttered, crispy kataifi dough and then generously bathed in a lemon-infused syrup.

Ingredients:

For the kataifi

- 450g kataifi dough (16 oz.)
- 250g walnuts, roughly chopped (9 oz.) - I normally add an additional 50% of nuts to the recipe as I do like the nuts.
- 1 tsp ground cinammon - optional
- a pinch ground clove - optional
- 250g butter from cow’s milk (9 oz.)

For the syrup

- 450g sugar (16 0z.)
- 330g water (12 oz.)
- peel of 1 lemon - alternatively, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 1 cinnamon stick

Instructions:

Syrup: Begin by adding the cinnamon stick to boiling water, as this will help extract the aromatic cinnamon oils. Allow it to steep for 10 minutes, and then add all the syrup ingredients to a small pot. Bring this mixture to a boil. Once the sugar has fully dissolved, your syrup is ready. Set it aside to cool completely.

Filling: In a blender, combine your choice of nuts, ground clove, and cinnamon. Pulse until the walnuts are coarsely chopped, maintaining some texture (avoid turning them into a fine powder). While traditional recipes often use walnut filling, many kataifi variations incorporate pistachios and almonds, so feel free to customize. If you don't have a blender, hand-chop the nuts to your preferred size and then mix in the spices.

Bringing it all Together: Melt the butter and, using a cooking brush, generously coat the bottom and sides of a baking pan (approximately 26-28cm or 11 inches in diameter).

Unroll the kataifi dough from its plastic sleeve. Gently work with the dough, separating and spreading out the strands if they've clumped together. If needed, you can cover the kataifi dough with a slightly damp towel to keep it moist. I've found that if you can complete this step within 10 minutes, the towel isn't necessary. Divide the dough into 5 equal portions, creating long layers where you can easily spread the nut filling.

Take one portion of the kataifi dough and lay it out on your work surface. Drizzle it with melted butter and evenly distribute 1/5 of the nut filling along the length of the dough. Roll it up tightly, folding in the long sides as you go to form a cylindrical roll. Place the kataifi roll in the prepared pan and brush the top with more melted butter, using the cooking brush to shape it slightly. Repeat this process with the remaining kataifi dough and filling, placing the kataifi rolls next to each other in the pan without gaps. Drizzle a little more butter over the top.

Bake the kataifi in a preheated oven on the middle rack at 170-180°C (370°F) for approximately 1 hour, or until it becomes beautifully golden and crispy. Note that oven temperatures can vary, so if your oven tends to be hotter, it might only take around 45 minutes to achieve the desired browning.

As soon as you remove the kataifi from the oven, gradually ladle about 3/4 of the cold syrup over the hot kataifi. Ensure each ladleful is absorbed before adding more. Cover the pan with a towel and let it rest for 10 minutes. Then, ladle the remaining syrup over the kataifi, waiting until it's fully absorbed.

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