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Baklava: It tastes about a thousand times better than it looks.
I’ve been on a baklava rampage recently. If you haven’t heard of it, baklava is this sweet pastry made up of 20% walnuts, 20% phyllo dough, 10% honey, and 450% sugar. It’s super sweet. It’s the kind of sweet that hurts your mouth, and causes cavities in your unborn grandchildren.
I love it. Wikipedia says that the Assyrians may have first invented it, in-between impaling people and spreading their skin out over walls. It later became popular in the Ottoman Empire, which as a result, became the first empire in history to be officially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. That’s why the Ottoman Empire was referred to as "the sick man of Europe."
Baklava then made its way to Slovenia via Bosnia, and is currently available around the country. I first tried some in a Slovenian restaurant, and it was like a revelation.
Michael’s stomach: "Give me more of whatever you just put in me."
Michael: "I can’t. My plate is empty."
Michael’s stomach: "Then go find some more, fagit!!!1!!1!"
The stuff is a bit addictive. It’s how I imagined Turkish Delight would taste after reading the Narnia chronicles. If you’ve never heard of Narnia, don’t worry — a blockbuster based on the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is coming this December to a theater near you. (Tagline: "The Lord of the Rings made a lot of money — maybe we can, too!")
At any rate, in The Lion, et alii, a character named Edmund gets addicted to Turkish Delight,
and almost gets himself and his siblings killed because of it. From the
moment I put the book down I really wanted to try the stuff. Years
later, I finally got my hands on some and it made me gag. It tasted
like sweetened jellyfish-meat with pinecone seeds in it.
Baklava, on the other hand, is the real deal. Just looking at this picture gives me the shakes.
Luckily for me, Slovenes are like Red in A Shawshank Redemption:
they’re people who know where to go to get things. That’s one of the
benefits of living in such a small country. Every Slovene is a walking Michelin guide,
full of a life’s worth of restaurant reviews. They’ll tell you exactly
what place makes the best whatever. You can ask them anything.
Foreigner: "Hey, where can I go for good octopus farts?"
Slovene: "Well, there’s this great little place at the coast…"
Since then, I’ve been eating a lot of baklava. I even managed to get
my trembling hands on a box of baklava from Sarajevo. (Specifically: Sarajbosna on Gajev trg.) It was like having an internal stomach massage. Delicious.
If anyone else can recommend a good place to eat baklava, I would love to hear it. And if anyone knows about any facilities that treat baklava addicts, I should probably get that info, too.
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Ah! baklava! They say, that after Istanbul baklava you will forget evetything else — I must go there fast. Greeks make it too syrupy. Arabs make it too light. And I dread the thought of what kind of animal fats Balkan Slavs
put in it.Mmmm, baklava.
Disclaimer: (before you send me any hate mail) yes, I know that Slovenians loathe being referred to as ‘Balkan Slavs’, along with the (Yugo-)others. I once received a lecture that Slovenian is closer to Czech than to Serbo-Croatian. Not really, but whatever. Still, come on, this is just some harmless early morning fun: I haven’t even finished my coffee yet!
I so relate to that! When I first tried baklava last summer, it immediately jumped to #1 position of my favorite sweet food, along with “kremshnita” which had been there for ages.
Sorry, but every recipe I got… there was no honey. No honey at all. That adhesive feeling od wet part is due to property of white sugar when melted in water, which must me heated, but not boiled. In fact it’s realy easy to make a baklava at home
Back to my favourite topic of baklava:
Yes, it is (relatively) easy to make at home and there are many recipes.
The syrup in most recipes contains both honey and white sugar.
I found a recipe here and a similar one here.
No! My landlord’s mother used to force feed me baklava when I lived in Belgrade. It may have been her secret recipe handed down to her by her great-great-great-grandmother who worked in the Pasha’s kitchens, or whatever it was she used to claim, but I still thought it was awful. I mean, I have as sweet tooth as the next being and think Death By Chocolate smothered in chocolate chip ice-cream is a bit savoury, but baklava is just TOO SWEET, man….
Irrelevant trivia: I nearly fell into lake Ohrid last year when washing my very sticky hands after devouring some delicious baklava.
Dr. Kruegell: Excellent! Where do you go for your fix?
Jezza: Please ask your landlord’s mother if she has space for a hungry houseguest this summer. He won’t bring any suitcases or anything else. Just a shirt and a pair of sweatpants that leave room for maximum expansion.
loxias: Have you tried making it at home? How did it go? I somehow doubt I can reproduce the magic I tried in our humble kitchen. I would definitely like to try Istanbul baklava. While I was looking around online, I found a lot of competing claims about whether baklava was a Turkish invention or a Greek one. It seems to be a serious issue for some people.
Well, fyllo pastry for baklava must be pastry grade, i.e. extra thin, so either buy some imported (I guess from places like Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Lebanon — I don’t know) or forget it. The other thing is the nuts: don’t overdo it. Moreover, whatever they say, nothing beats butter.
Indeed, the magic is hard to reproduce at home: baklava is relatively easy but needs the right amount of baking and both the syrup and the baklava must be really warm when merged.
Greeks and Turks fighting over baklava? A serious issue for non-serious people. Poor sods! I s’pose the Persian / Arab / Ottoman / Byzantine chefs (whoever concocted this dangerous addictive stuff) are turning in their graves.
Oh man, BAKLAVA!
It’s my favourite sweet food in the whole world. I ate the best one in Santorini / Greece. Best ones in Slovenia were ALWAYS home made and never in restaurant.
“If anyone else can recommend a good place to eat baklava, I would love to hear it. And if anyone knows about any facilities that treat baklava addicts, I should probably get that info, too.”
You can always hassle/bargain with me or my girlfriend, it has worked for various Slovene rockstars. The reason why you should do this is because we make baklava WITH ADDED CANADIAN MAPLE SYRUP. It’s seriously the best thing ever. I shit you not.
That picture of baklava also gave me shakes…
Tell me, how would ajvar (all time favourite) go with that? Nevermind.
RWAAR!!
You should make the baklava with poppy seeds for added opium extract addiction
Back in the day, the best baklava was always in the shadiest Albanian pastry shop. You know the one, where lemonade is swirling in a jar, looking like a bunch of yellow spittle and the bar is made from aluminum siding. Sadly, the mentioned albanian pastry shops have been dissapearing since the early 90’s, due to various reasons. Some blame sanitary inspections, enlistment in the fight for Kosovo and the more lucrative business of arms dealing.
I am not a huge baklava fan, I like prekmurska gibanica much better. But my dad said that the best baklava he ever had was when he was stationed in Bela Crkva for his compulsory military service. I have had the Greek (too syrupy) and the Turkish (too dry) baklava, but IMHO they both lose to the version you get in Slovenia / the Balkans.
Loxias: I might be putting my foot in it here, sorta lecturing you, but in Slovenia you can easily get the proper phillo dough. Of course, purists would argue that you have to make the dough yourself. I would agree when it comes to strudl.
I am still addicted to Tim Horton’s
donuts and tim bits. There is nothing
better in the whole world. Baklava is too
sweet and messy. The canadian butter tart
is also the best. But I have to admit
that walnut cake which I first had in
Rijeka is very good also. This cake is made
from walnut flour and has tons of chocalate
and rum.the frosting is dusted with more walnut flour. Its called walnut torta.
A food critic AND a historian AND a comedian. How do all these characters live in one mind?
Great piece of writing; I’m calling my dentist immediately, as my teeth are killing me.
Of course, baklava can be “dangerous” for your health, but there is nothing so good as good baklava. Here(in Sarajevo) you can have it on every corner - so, I can say, not every baklava is good baklava, but good baklava is the must!
My family comes originally from Lebanon, and I don’t recall that the baklava recipe had any honey in it, just syrup made out with water and sugar, but I’ll check it and send it to you
(Turish) Baklava is really good under Karlovški most www.yildiz-han.com/.
If someone knows where to find better one, please, please, pretty please, let us know.
Phyllo is a good thing, it doesn’t matter what its wrapped around!:)
Indeed, the Turkish restaurant “Yildiz Han” in Ljubljana, near Karlstadt Bridge has a good one. Also, the Bosnian restaurant “Deset v pol” in Stepanjsko naselje quarter in LJ has good baklavas… but now my favorite is the one that my girlfriend brought me the other day (allegedly made by her father).
Glad to see so many people addicted to sweet stuff
I basically get ill if I don’t get any suggar on a regular daily basis so I guess eating a baklava would replenish my suggar supply for about a week or so 
Unfortunately my stomach cannot take on the walnuts, so I’m a bit hesistant about eating baklava.
Michael: My house is a good “baklava source” once in every two weeks. Other than that I’ll have to stick with what Dr. Kruegell said: “Deset v pol” and “Yildiz Han”. I’ve heard of “Balkan ekspress” in Maribor which is also supposed to have good baklava on it’s menu.. Don’t know actually since I’ve never been there before.
Dr. Kruegell: What a great girlfriend you have
Gaaaaaaah *Homer drowling* I miss baklava so much! I gotta import that to Portugal! Hey Michael, seriously, you got the funniest piece of writting of the day, loved the history lesson!
Well I’ve had Baklava made by people from Sarajevo, people from Neum, people from Istanbul, and people from Jerusalem,and people from Baghdad, just to give you an idea of my Baklava street smarts. Baklava from a cook from Sarajevo is second best after Baklava made by a cook from Jerusalem.
The absolute worst baklava I had came from Neum, there was plenty of it but it was full of walnut shells and didn’t have enough rosewater.
Now it happens I am fond of Turkish delight. I do have to say that there is a brand manufactured in England, which is covered with chocolate which is ODIOSO!
GADAN i los! The same company exports to England, perfectly decent Turkish delight, this product with the chocolate coating is for the English market. I do think Bosnian made Turkish delight is very very good, and that they are second after the Turks themselves with that product. Greeks now I like Greek people but they can’t make Turkish delight, and the ABSOLUTE worst Turkish delight experience I had was in Dublin, I bought some from a shop in ‘Aladin’s Cave’ which is off of Georges Street, in the shadow of the infamous Dublin Castle. There is located in Aladin’s Cave also a damned nice sari shop, called Maharani’s run by a lady called Leila. Leila is just plain good people, and her prices are very reasonable.
To get back to Baklava, the secret of good Baklava is pine nuts vs walnuts and the source of the rosewater, Lebanese roswater is very good, and that is what is used in Baklava made in Jerusalem. Sarajevo Baklava if it has rosewater probably has it from Bulgaria which is the absolute BEST source of rosewater and attar of roses both. Bosnian baklava is more likely to have walnuts than pine nuts, frankly I prefer pine nuts, which outside of Italy and Spain, are hard to obtain in Europe.
quote:Ah! baklava! They say, that after Istanbul baklava you will forget evetything else — I must go there fast. Greeks make it too syrupy. Arabs make it too light. And I dread the thought of what kind of animal fats Balkan Slavs
put in it.
Mmmm, baklava.
Posted by: Loxias
Not to worry, everyone knows to use butter, anyway the best pastryshops in Sarajevo are Muslim run, so you don’t need to worry about horrors like lard in it, besides the Croats and Serbs understand that is Simply NOT Done. They just put lard in stuff it belongs in.
katja
Katja,
nothing on this planet beats Bulgarian rosewater. Still, its proper place is in Turkish delights and the small, bite sized baklavas (Arab style), not large format baklava…
Loxia that would be mostly a matter of expense. Bulgarian rosewater actually backs their currency! It is worth more than it’s weight in gold, and anyway the Arab style baklava is nearly always done with Lebanse rosewater or if the cook is short of money the rosewater can even come from India. Frankly Indian rosewater is all I can afford. I haven’t seen Lebanese rose water or rose syrup in some time, finally the rose syrup is available in my area, if one goes to Seattle. The terrible Civil War in 1970s-1980s hurt production. As for Bulgarian rosewater, well I think the only time I have had it was in Sarajevo baklava, and Turkish made Turkish delight.
Baklava is like I died and gone to heaven, everyone knows is a Turkish foods, the Ottomans bring it to Anadolu (anatolia) from Central Asia along with Phylo pastry, Phylo comes from the Turkish word which originates from all sweet things, Just call it Mershmet mmmmmmm, I getting all hungy thinking about this ey how about everyone come over my place for a treat of Baklava and arak
;) 