Maghreb Pastries

The New York Times has an article on the new trendy dessert in Paris: North African pastries, which are local variations on the general Middle Eastern theme of baklava and other nut-filled, honey-sweetened delights. The author, desperate to recreate the taste in New York, got some help through an Algerian cooking blog by chef Farid Zadi that I was happy to discover too. The three recipes she publishes look very good and not too demanding -- but as a veteran of many less-than-successful attempts to make these sorts of sweets at home, I'd like to suggest that the author could run up to Montréal instead, where pastries from all across the Middle and Near East are available. Perhaps they won't be as elegant as the Paris variety (check out the picture in the article - they look really gorgeous) but they'll taste just as good. One suggestion for North African desserts would be the free-standing shop on the east-central end of the Jean-Talon market, near the elevators that come up from the new parking garage. Be sure to eat your sweets with a little cup of thick Arab coffee, or mint tea. My husband is - at this very moment - shopping at Adonis, another place in Montréal where Middle Eastern pastries are abundant and more refined than the too-sticky, cloyingly sweet, diamond-shaped baklava most people associate with this category of desserts. I'm hoping he'll come home with something for a treat.

Farid Zadi recommended another Algerian cooking blog that I also liked very much (it's written by a Parisian, in French, but can be translated): Les Casseroles de Nawal. The current recipe is for a puff pastry appetizer with anchovies and poppy seeds - looks fantastic - scroll down to an elegant but fast fish dish with onion, lemon, grain mustard and capers. The recipes in the archives look equally unusual and delicious.

Comments

[St Antonym]

"I'm hoping he'll come home with something for a treat."

And with any luck, he'll also bring some pastries with him. ;)

[beth]

Yeah - but he didn't! He brought all kinds of good things, but no pastries! Guess I'll have to roll up my sleeves and get out the flour and butter, like that poor food editor at the Times!

[Nawal]

Thank you ! :-)))

[Jean]

Great blogs, thank you! It had never occurred to me to look for blogs by cooks. I adore Middle Eastern food - all except the pastries, which are too sweet for even my sweet tooth. The availability of good food is great touchstone of a decent place to live for me too. When I go to the local 'convenience' store and see the shelves and shelves of disgusting, inedible food and smell the stale, sour smell of it, it seems to be the smell of all that is wrong with the way we live and my heart swells with passionate anger - and so it should! Good food keeps us sane and anchored in our senses. Global migration and the money migrants can make by offering their national cuisine are a great assurance that decent and varied food cannot be stamped out. Sorry, what were you talking about? Oh, yes, pastries...

[Pica]

Oh Yum. Thanks Beth. I'll look forward to reading these blogs more carefully.

(Jean, you GO girl.)