Hello guys and welcome back to international night. On this episode,
we are celebrating the country of Tunisia the small but mighty country in North
Africa sandwiched in between Algeria and Libya. Tunisia is a country that has so much to offer
especially in the food scene. It has inspired many different films
including cultural icon films like Star Wars!
So today we going to be making baklava! In my last episode I said baklava looked hard
to make but upon further research it actually looks quite doable and you only
need a few ingredients. It doesn't take extremely long to make.
It takes about an hour and a half . The main ingredient is fillo dough, which I
will link in the description below. I was able to find this at Whole Foods. I'm
also going to be using honey instead of sugar. Instead of butter I will be using
olive oil. You also need raw nuts, so walnuts
almonds, pecans, anything you have on hand will do just fine. And I'm also going to
add some cinnamon. Those are the main ingredients and last but not least we
are going to use the rind of a lemon to give it a little zest. And on that note,
let's make it! So first things first is you want to thaw the fillo dough. I
left it in the fridge overnight and then I left it out for about two hours so
that it's soft and malleable to work with. So there's a couple utensils you're
going to need one is a brush and then the other thing is some sticks or
skewers. The recipe that I'm drawing inspiration from for the baklava today
is "Eya's corner" she's from Tunisia she has a blog and a
YouTube channel where she cooks all different types of cuisine from Tunisia
and I'm drawing inspiration from her today because I want that authenticity
into this dish. I'm gonna chop these nuts and if you
have a food processor it'll go by even faster. Next I have a baking sheet
here I'm gonna grease the pan and if you have butter or ghee could use that
instead but I'm using olive oil today
okay so the shape I'm going to make these in is little cigars.
This is going to go very lightly coated
Place the skewers here, and fold this over.
And start rolling. When we reach the ends, smush them together.
okay so this is actually pretty fun to make. I've never done this before,
and when you travel there's many things that you've never done before.
There's foods you've never tried, cultural experiences that are new to you
as well. So that's really the beauty of travel. So during this time when we're
all staying home, if you can try to do something that you normally aren't used
to doing, whether it's cooking something new, trying a new food, trying a new route
to work, learning a new dance. All of that gets you into the spirit of getting out
of your comfort zone and traveling. Tunisia is a small country but it's
really packed with a lot of diverse landscapes from beautiful tropical
Mediterranean waters to deserts. The Sahara Desert is there. This is the place
that inspired Star Wars so a lot of the scenery and even character names and
planet names were inspired by a Tunisia. Filming Star Wars was really a passion
project for George Lucas. He spent months out of the desert in Matmata and
other locations literally in the middle of nowhere.
George Lucas was so forward thinking and so futuristic that a lot of people
didn't understand what was really being built and he had so many insurmountable
challenges during the filming that it's really inspiring to see someone overcome
those and really create something that is a cultural icon. So one of the things
that makes Tunisia really unique from say Morocco or Egypt is that it has the
Star Wars film sets that are still intact as if they were just filmed there
today film sets are actually Berber homes in the middle of the desert Berber
people they live in basically caves underground to insulate themselves from
the heat. It is really interesting to go into these homes and see exactly where it was
filmed it was just this sense of wonder and nostalgia that brought me back to
when I first saw those films.
Fillo dough is a very delicate and very breakable so be careful. Just as a
finishing touch before I put these in the oven I'm going to coat them with a
little bit more olive oil so that they get a nice shine. I have my baking sheet
with the baklava and it's going to go into the oven for about 50 minutes at
350 degrees Fahrenheit about 170 degrees Celsius in a sauce pan
I'm going to take 1/2 a cup of honey with a little bit of water and the rind
of a lemon can also add a cinnamon stick if you have that and I'm going to simmer
this to make a syrup so into the saucepan I'm going to turn this out
and I'm going to put some honey I'm also going to add some lemon juice so I'm
just gonna wait for this to simmer and become like a sauce that was an
important op we wanted to get nice and thick kind of like a consistency of a
corn syrup so when deciding to choose which movie to pair with our tunisia
night. "Star Wars" is an obvious one, so is Indiana Jones, so is the English Patient
which won an Oscar! I decided to go with a less obvious one
this is "Empire of Dreams" and it shows them arriving in Africa arriving in
Tunisia with the cast and crew watching the behind the scenes, I see this movie
in a completely different light. Also they're showing the locations that we
went to in Tunisia so you can watch the videos click up there and you can watch
these exact locations. So here they are in the middle of the Sahara we George
Lucas and crew he's describing the challenges that he faced in Tunisia
but this was a passion project so he was able to power through.
Tunisia is one of the most hospitable countries that I've been to the people
there really valued sharing food I was really impressed by the food that I
tried there and one of the other things that Tunisia is known for is their
pottery which I was able to pick up while in Djerba. Djerba is known for
their amazing craftsmen and pottery I was able to fit this one in my luggage
along with a few others. This is a beautiful plate made of ceramic we
visited the artisans who create this and they are
extremely talented and I'll be using this as the serving dish for the baklava.
They're talking about one of my favorite scenes in Star Wars "A New Hope, this is
when they arrived at Mos Espa which is this village in the middle of Tatooine a
planet talked to me and they go to the famous cantina scene exterior of the
cantina was filmed in Tunisia but the interior was found in film sets in
London reason why Tunisia was chosen one of the reasons is George Lucas needed a
desert location within clothes flying distance to London which is the primary
location where many of the interior space craft sets were filmed time for a
peek all the baklava is baking I'm going to chop some pistachios which will go on
top as a presentation so during this quarantine time I've been doing a lot of
cooking it's a great way to get in the spirit of traveling to other countries
by cooking some of their national dishes and famous cuisines baklava of course is
known across the Mediterranean it's known in Greece it's known in Turkey I
tried many different varieties while I was in Tunisia so it truly is a delight
and everyone has a very creative way of making it and you might wonder after
watching these videos which countries should I go to it
if you're looking for more of like a luxurious foodie destination Morocco
looking for a country that literally has it all in a very compact country Tunisia
also Tunisia is unique because you can get the nostalgia of these film sets so
if you're a big star Wars fan you will love it
another thing that makes Tunisian really interesting is there isn't that much
tourism there. While we were there we were some of the only u.s. tourists
and some of the only tourists in general whereas Egypt is very touristed, in fact
over touristed, and rightfully so. The pyramids or something just mind-blowing.
You want to choose Egypt because it's the only country where you can see sights
with that amount of age and preservation.
If you are from Tunisia, I want to know - how do you make baklava?
And what is your favorite dish from Tunisia? comment below. I also want to know what have you
guys been cooking during quarantine time? Have you been trying some new recipes?
Oh yeah, this is what I want. I am going to turn this off.
my god we're going to drizzle some more over on top we are going to pour our
syrup right on top ooh you can hear it sizzle that's what
we want.
For the finishing touch - pistachios.
we're gonna let it sit so it can soak up all of these flavors okay
I have "empire of dreams the story about the Star Wars trilogy" right here which I
watched the link below watch this what's interesting to me is this film nothing
like it had ever been done before and auditory - so you need something
uplifting during this time it's great to learn from the challenges of this film.
It smells so good - by the way aside from a honey, this is vegan, so all the
vegans out there, enjoy!
look at the inside - it's like perfect rolls.
it was so crispy. There's a hint of cinnamon. The honey goes with it just perfectly.
The fillo dough came out just crispy. What is great about baking this is that you
don't really have to be perfect. You can really improvise and you can really
eyeball it. it's not a lot of precision like baking. So Mike is pairing it with
ice cream how is it yeah so I'm going to enjoy the rest of this "Empire of Dreams
Star Wars film" and I hope that you get a chance to watch this and make this very
soon and once this Fantine is over I hope you get a chance to visit tunisia
tunisia is truly a jam it's very rare to go to a place where there where it's
simply untouched by tourism yet has the infrastructure you need in Tunisia is
that place Emily feels like another world like
another planet and I think you've attitudes to visit it's very soon on
that note stay healthy stay safe and stay tuned be sure to LIKE and subscribe
down below because we've been doing many more travel related videos and every
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