Kataifi with Pistachio, Macadamia & Ginger
Kataifi is one of the most versatile types of pastry. It’s neutral flavour works really well both for savoury and sweet dishes. It bakes incredibly well in the oven and you can also deep fry it. You can find in Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine and it goes by slightly different names.
I’ve made one of the classic Greek sweet versions and only played around with the filling and flavours. The perfect Kataifi is soaked in syrup but, you need to strike the right balance. The base and centre need to be soaked while the top needs to remain crunchy. You can achieve this with the right amount of syrup and also by making sure you pour cold syrup over a hot Kataifi or hot syrup over a cool kataifi.
This delicious treat is served at room temperature.
Ingredients
For the syrup
330g water
450g caster sugar
1 stick of cinnamon
Peel of 1 orange
1 thumb of fresh ginger
2 cloves
For the kataifi rolls
125g macadamia
125 g pistachios
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp ginger
400g kataifi dough
300g butter
Step by Step
Add the ingredients for the syrup in a pan and bring it to boil. As soon as it boil, turn the heat down and let it simmer for 10 min. Take it off the hob and let it cool down completely
Blitz the macadamia and pistachio roughly. Make sure you leave bigger bits, don’t turn them into powder
In a bowl, mix the nuts, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger & cloves
Melt the butter
Butter a 9 inch square tin
Unravel the kataifi pastry and divide it in thin strips roughly 5cm wide.
Drizzle generously some butter on the kataifi strips.
Place a tablespoon of nut and spices at the top of each strip
Roll the strips and place them one next to the other in the tray
Make sure you don’t leave any space between them in the tin. They need to be tight in the tin or they will unravel during the baking
Once your tin is filled, drizzle the remaining butter on top
Bake in a preheated oven at 170 C static for 1h roughly. They are ready when they are golden brown
As soon as you take them out of the oven add the cooled down syrup with a ladle
Top each little kataifi with half a macadamia
Let the Kataifi rest at least 4 hours
Enjoy!
Tips & Cheats
If the Kataifi is hot always poor cool syrup.
You can also do this this other way around: Hot syrup on cool kataifi.
They syrup will help preserve the Kataifi for a long time outside the fridge
You can switch the nuts and spices however you wish and you can use lemon instead of orange
You can mix some cocoa powder in the nut mix
Some people add sugar in the nut mix. I prefer to mix just spices and nuts as the syrup will give you the right amount of sweetness.
