ALBANIAN PIES

 

Today when women and men wish to make pies and deserts with phyllo dough they go to their nearest Greek store and buy it ready made. My mother made it from scratch. After mixing the proper ingredients she would put a large lump of dough on a clean sheet and begin rolling it out into thinner and thinner layers with a long thin rolling pin known as an (okalia) phonetically spelled. Depending on what part of Albania you came from the pies were known as either “Berek” or “Lacrod. “The process of rolling would start at 8:00 AM and wouldn’t be completed until noon. The resulting phyllo dough was near transparent. As a young boy I was transfixed with the constant rolling. As an aside I should add that when I misbehaved which was often, my mother chased me around the house with that same rolling pin. I often wonder now that if she caught me would she have used it.

Inside these pies ingredients such as lamb, onions, tomatoes, sauerkraut etc. were added. My favorite of all was spinach mixed with feta cheese. These pies were made and kept in the refrigerator for the weeks’ meals. Just writing about them these many years later make my mouth water. When you bit in them you could hear the crunch of the dough. No ready mixed phyllo dough compared to my mothers’ hand rolled product.

I am leaving the best part for last. This same hand rolled phyllo dough was the basis for my mothers’ baklava. Made with walnuts, almonds and honey as the basic ingredients… were worth pound for pound the equivalent of a bar of gold. For many years I have tried baklava in the best of Greek restaurants but none come close to my mothers. I wonder if I ever told her how much I enjoyed her Albanian pies and dessert. If I didn’t I should have.