We all are different.... Just the way we should be

Passport & Plate - Pakhlava, fresh out of the hills of Caucasus

Ukraine | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
Dough: .5 cup vegetable oil; 3 cups of white flour, 1tbs salt, .5 cup of warm water
Syrup: .5 cup of water, cup of sugar, 2tbs. of honey, juice squeezed from half of a lemon
Also: 1 cup of walnuts, ground; 1 cup of sugar, 100 g of unsalted butter
..... But honestly, I never measure this. I hate all those mesuring cups, don't even know where I put them in my kitchen

 

How to prepare this recipe
As it is a recipe of oriental cuisine, it will take quite some time to make this really perfect!
We need to ground walnuts mixed with sugar. Walnuts shouldn't be greasy, though, we really want that thing dry, like sprinkles on a cake!
Syrup: we need to mix half a cup if water with sugar in a saucepan, then put it on a mild fire, wait till it boils... When it just has started boiling, we need to stir it from time to time, on a very low fire, and in 10 minutes goes honey to give it a nice thick structureto it. After this, stir for 5 more mins, add lemon juice and yes... Put it away from fire finally, so it cools down by the moment when we need to use it.
Dough: mix flour and salt, then add oil and water.... The dough has an amazing structure, in fact, it's not authentic kind of dough for this recipe, it's the one used for Strudel...we leave it in a warm place for half an hour in order for gluten to become sticky, and then shape 32 little balls of dough which, by the way, doesn't even stick!
After this, we melt the butter,grease pan with it, then form really thin sheets out of every of 32 little balls (it's extremely important that there are 32 of them!) and put first five layers of this exuisitely thin dough one of top of another putting some melted butter on each of them, so we can enjoy all 32 layers separately when it's done... Every five or six of them we need to put sugary walnuts on top of a layer of dough, and then hide them ahain with another sheet. This procedure repeats itself, and in the end we should put a whipped yolk on top of the last layer, so it becomes crunchy and brown-ish. Now, we put what we have into an over, preheated to 200 degrees in celsius, bake for 20 minutes, then take it out, cut into rombs and put in the over for another 10 minutes at 180 degrees. After this, we put syrup over it and let it stay in a still warm oven for five minutes so it imbues hiney. If we have any walnuts left over, we should sprinkle them all over. Enjoy!

 

The story behind this recipe
I am sitting with my eyes closed, and my grandma asks me not to open them till she bids me, but it's no use: the pakhlava smell is so rich that my mouth becomes watery immediately. I keep my promise, and wait for her soft voice kindly let me open my eyes finally and have some of my most favourite things in the whole white world.
Do you know, how to eat it right?
It's very hard to master, eating your Pakhlava without having dropped crambles on the ground!
You need to take bites carefully, even though it's so delicious you would rather swallow this thing entirely and ask for more!
But your grandma is looking at you with admiration, and you can't just get messy with your food anymore, you have turned six half a year ago, you're about to start school, no, you're not going to get messy like a little kid! Parting corners of your lips when biting this divine treat...
Got to show some manners you have acquired since the last summer when you were so young, so incredibly young, just five and a half. Now it's summer again, and you're visiting these extremely hospitable people who are parents of your parents, who are so warm with Caucasian sun they seem to smell dry like flour and spicy like honey.
Now you're finally 13, and your grandma tell you with an extremely strong Armenian accent 'You need to learn how to cook my ways before... my knowledge is captured by the eternity'. You pretend not to understand what she implies, you're a little rebel: no, you don't want to learn how to cook, no, thanks grandma, what are you talking about, you will be here forever to make us some.
You're 17, and no one makes treats for you anymore. Reluctantly, you look into your grandma's cooking book, making it seem like you're just bored, so you decided to cook. But deep in your mind you realize: you want your chilhood back. And you have it, coming out of the oven, smelling like walnuts and tasting surprisingly good. And, most importantly,capturing the knowledge which is so important to preserve