Baklava

If  love is directly proportional to the degree of effort required to produce a dish, then making baklava for someone is akin  to telling them you love them madly!  To make a fabulous baklava, it takes time.  For me, the secret is using whole nuts and roasting and grinding them myself.  I always buy walnuts in their shells, because they do go rancid tres vite, once shelled.   I've used only walnuts and almonds but pistachios are wonderful too, speckling the baklava with vivid green.  And in the spirit of the dalliance, why not use other whole spices like cardamon pods and star anise in the syrup??  Makes 30 pieces.
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2 cups shelled walnuts
1 cup almonds
3 tsp cinnamon powder
375 g filo pastry
180 g melted unsalted butter

Syrup
2 cups  sugar
1.5 cups water
3 thinly peeled strips of orange rind
6 cloves
1 cinnamon quill

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.  Place nuts on baking tray and roast till golden, about 10 mins.

Reduce heat to 170 degrees.  Finely chop nuts using a food processor.  Be careful not not to grind them to a powder though.  Combine with cinnamon in a bowl.

Butter base and sides of a 33x23x5 cm baking tray.  Cover base with a single layer of filo and brush lightly with the melted butter.  Continue to layer the filo, brushing with butter between each new layer until 10 sheets have been used.  Keep the rest of the filo pastry under a damp tea towel to prevent it from drying out.

Sprinkle half of the nut mixture over the pastry and pat down evenly.  Repeat the layering and buttering of  five more filo sheets and then sprinkle with the rest of the nuts, keeping the layer relatively even.  Layer and butter remaining filo sheets and finish by brushing top layer with butter. 

Cut the top layers of the baklava with a sharp knife into diamond shapes.  Flick a little  water onto the top layers to prevent them from curling upwards,  Pour any remaining butter evenly over the top.   Bake for one hour.  If it is browining too quickly, cover loosely with foil.  Pastry must be allowed to cook thoroughly.

Once cooked, immediately cut through the original diamond markings and let cool.

In the meantime, make the syrup.  Place all ingredients into a medium saucepan, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low and let simmer for 10 mins.  By this time the syrup will have thickened slightly.  Pour hot syrup uniformly over cooled baklava.    Step back and inhale the ambrosial aromas of the East!