Stop and... smell the roses with my rosewater sweets from the Middle East.

Announcer: "Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ [Middle Eastern music playing] In our super busy, hustle and bustle, can't even take a second to breathe schedules, sometimes we really just need to stop and take in our surroundings.

Whether it be in beautiful and breathtaking indoor spaces or outdoor places, near or far, or right in our very own backyard, be it by ourselves or amongst the people that mean the most to us, we truly just need to take more time to take it all in.

And on today's show, I want you to sit back and relax while we create some of my signature rosewater sweets straight from the Middle East that is sure to bring your mind at ease.

First up is my bellawriyeh, a sumptuous shredded Phyllo dough sweet layered with a perfect pistachio and walnut filling, followed by my "eish al bolbol," blossoming birds' nests filled with plush pistachio nuts, baked blissfully as can be, and both are finished off with, you guessed it, my signature rosewater syrup that is subtly sweet, slightly sticky, and splendid to the senses!

My rosewater signature sweets will surely have you... stopping to smell the roses.

Visiting the rose gardens today near me inspired me so much to get myself this big, beautiful bouquet of pink roses, and I'm just going to snip off the last one.

Whew!

Ha!

That one just flew over my kitchen.

And just get it in our beautiful bouquet of flowers that we have here, and as you can see, I've filled up the whole kitchen today with pink, including myself, in honor of our stopping to smell the roses with our rosewater sweets from the Middle East.

And the first thing that we are starting on when you're making any of our Lebanese or Middle Eastern sweets is clarifying our butter, and I started off with 4 sticks of unsalted butter, and I'm just slowly melting them in our sauce pot that we have over here, and then what is going to happen is it's going to start to sort of boil a little bit, and then once it starts to boil, we're going to lower our heat, and then we're just going to let it sort of slowly simmer, sort of slowly boil away, and all of the milk solids in the salt that's in the unsalted butter is going to sort of dissipate and start to dissolve and kind of stick to the bottom of the pot, and then what we're left with is this beautiful sort of-- I call it liquid gold-- clarified butter, and then we're going to be using that clarified butter to make all of our sweets today, which we're making one of my favorite sweets called bellawriyeh.

It's a shredded dough dessert.

It's the shredded Phyllo dough that sort of resembles angel hair pasta in a way, actually.

And then the other sweet that we're making is called birds' nests, and we're using the flat Phyllo dough, number 4, actually, so it's pretty thin.

So let's get started on our shredded Phyllo dough, shall we?

So I have it right here before me, And the first thing that you want to do is you just sort of want to tear it apart a little bit but gently, and what I had done before I started sort of shredding it before you is that I took it out from our refrigerator and just let it sit on the countertop for a little bit, maybe about 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes max just to sort of come to room temperature.

OK, so I have our water right over here that's been boiling away, and I have a strainer that's sitting right atop.

I'm going to take half of the amount of the shredded Phyllo dough, and at this point, you just need to tear it just a little bit so you can get two sections.

OK, we're just going to put this right in the steamer.

You just kind of, again, break it apart a little bit with your fingers.

And we're just going to steam it just for a little bit, just for a couple of minutes, actually, just so it can become a little bit moist for us.

And then we're going to put it on our sheet pan and do our second batch.

All right, so now we're going to get it onto our board.

And we're going to just sort of spread it all apart with our fingers.

Just like that.

You can see it's very easy now for me to work through it.

It's very pliable, which is a good sign.

And we're going to take some of that beautiful liquid gold, that clarified butter.

And we're just going to sort of... spoon it right over the shredded Phyllo dough.

And now I'm just going to sort of toss it together.

Just like that.

Beautiful, right?

It feels so good.

It's nice and moist.

It's soft, it's pliable, and that's definitely what you are looking for when you're making the shredded Phyllo dough desserts, this one or any of them, actually.

And that little touch of the clarified butter really helps, and it makes it delicious, too.

Ha ha!

OK.

So now this looks good to go.

We are going to just set it aside momentarily.

The first ingredient up for our bellawriyeh filling is our pistachio nuts, and they're beautiful, plush, big pistachio nuts.

They are unsalted, and they are whole, so that's definitely what you want to use.

So we are going to use two cups of pistachio nuts, and I also have our beautiful, nice walnuts.

They are also whole.

They're raw.

They're unsalted.

Just going to get one cup of these.

So we have two cups of the pistachio to one cup of the walnut filling.

And I also need some granulated white sugar.

We are going to use one cup.

And we're just going to grind them until they're sort of like a coarse meal.

We don't want them to be ground too fine, and we don't want them to be ground too coarse.

So sort of like right in the middle.

OK, that looks good.

Let's take a look.

Let's make sure that we have the right consistency and texture.

And that actually looks perfect.

Now we are going to get it into our mixing bowl.

See that?

We still have the sort of like little kind of bits and pieces of the pistachio nuts, which you definitely want when you're making a delicious pistachio nut filling.

Ha ha!

And we are going to finish this filling with a little bit of our liquid gold, a.k.a.

clarified butter.

Ha ha ha!

And of course it's all about stopping to smell the roses and eating the roses.

Uh, not exactly, you know, eating them actually, but the essence of roses with our rosewater.

In Arabic, we call it maward.

And it's distilled from rose petals, and it's just an amazing, amazing flavor that we cook with and bake with in all of our sweets.

So I'm just going to measure about one tablespoon of this, also.

Just like that.

Using our spatula, we're just sort of going to mix this together.

So we don't want the mixture to be dry, and we don't want it to be too wet.

We kind of want it right in the middle, and we want it to have lots of flavor, and we're getting that flavor from the sugar, from the clarified butter, and from the rosewater.

So, look how beautiful that looks.

See that?

You can see that it's not too dry and it's not overly wet.

It's just nice and moist.

OK.

Smells good.

Ha ha!

My brother Eddie and I kid.

He actually calls it like orange blossom pop and rosewater pop because of the, you know, clear sort of, like, um... you know, soda bottles that they come in, but you can easily find these, I should say, in actually major supermarkets now in addition to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean specialty stores.

What we're going to do now is we're going to take a pastry brush, and we're just going to dip it in and coat the bottom of the pan.

OK. We're going to take half the amount of the shredded Phyllo dough, just like that.

Kind of eyeball it, as close as you can.

And using your fingers again, just sort of spread the Phyllo dough evenly out on the bottom of the pan just like so.

And then, using the palms of your hands, you want to sort of like firmly press down on the shredded Phyllo dough all around.

So you can see that it's pretty much stuck together at this point.

And it's nice and flattened.

And this is a key, key step in making this sweet.

OK, now we're going to grab our pistachio nut filling.

I'm going to take all of it and just pour it right on top of that first layer.

And then using the back of your spatula, just sort of evenly spread the pistachio and walnut mixture so that it covers all of the shredded Phyllo dough on the bottom, and it goes right up to the edges, too.

Now, using the palms of your hands again, press down on that filling, and you're pressing it down to flatten it, number one, and you're also pressing it down so that it can really kind of get right into that shredded Phyllo dough that's on the bottom.

Now for our second half of and final half of shredded Phyllo dough.

OK, so now, again, using the palms of my hands, I'm just pressing down firmly on that top layer of the Phyllo dough so that it can come together with the filling in the center.

OK, now I'm going to take the clarified butter.

I just want to drizzle a little bit more, about another tablespoon or so, right over that entire top.

All right, so my tip and trick.

So we're going to take a piece of parchment paper and press it down into our bellawriyeh sweet, and then I have an identical pan that I'm going to put on top of the parchment paper into that bellawriyeh sweet so that it can become bound together.

So I'm just going to get it in the refrigerator, and we're going to let it set for a couple of hours.

The rose gardens are so gorgeous, and they completely inspired me to be making our rosewater Lebanese and Middle Eastern sweets today.

And we're starting on our second one, which is our beautiful little blossoming birds' nests.

And I'm going to reveal to you right now our Phyllo dough.

I just have a sort of damp cloth that's covering it.

But there are these beautiful thin sheets of Phyllo dough, and you can, again, find them with the shredded Phyllo dough in the refrigerator or frozen food section of your supermarkets or, again, specialty Mediterranean and Middle Eastern stores, and the one that I'm using today is number 4.

They are marked on the front of the box with a number indicating how thin or how thick the Phyllo dough sheets are.

And for this sweet and most of my sweets, I would say that I'm always using number 4, OK?

So I just have this right before me.

I'm just going to continue to cover it because we're going to make our pistachio nuts singular filling for our sweets today.

And I have my little chopper that I'm using because we're just making a little bit of filling because we're only using about a teaspoon or so of the pistachio nuts.

Just going to use one cup of the pistachio nuts.

And we're also just going to use a little bit of granulated white sugar, about a quarter cup.

And we're just going to grind them, again, so they're about a coarse meal.

They're not going to be too fine and not too large, either.

Transfer this into our mixing bowl.

You can see sort of the texture of the pistachio nuts, so some are a little bit more finely ground, and then you have these sort of nice little kind of pistachio pieces, too, which is really a nice bite with these blossoming birds' nests.

And now we are going to get a little bit of our clarified butter to give it a little bit more flavor.

Maybe about a half of a tablespoon, and we're going to get our rosewater, our maward, because it is stopping to smell the roses.

Ha ha!

About a half a tablespoon of this, too.

It's going to infuse lots of beautiful sort of fragrant flora leaf flavor-- I love my alliteration-- into our pistachio nut filling.

And then we're just going to simply stir it all together.

So now what we're going to do is we're simply going to take a sharp, small paring knife, and we are going to slice the sheets right in half.

So now we're going to take our pastry brush and lightly dip it into our clarified butter.

See how we're using our clarified butter all day today for making our luscious Lebanese and Middle Eastern sweets?

And now we're just going to lightly brush our Phyllo dough or half a Phyllo dough sheet, I should say, just like so.

And now we're going to grab our marble dowel, and we're going to roll this sheet on the dowel.

Just kind of let your fingers roll, not too light and not too tight, and then we're going to take our pastry brush again and just do a little bit more butter right on the very end just so it can adhere to the pastry dowel.

And now we're going to take one hand, just sort of like this on an angle, and sort of twist it and scrunch it at the same time.

Just sort of like an accordion.

Ha ha!

OK, and now with our other hand, we're just going to sort of roll it right off... and you have this beautiful sort of accordion-like shape going on.

You're going to take the one end and tuck it under, so that way it can hold the filling, and just sort of release the other end, kind of winding it around.

OK?

And we're going to take some of our lush pistachio nut-only filling and just fill it just like that.

So I'm using a teaspoon.

So it's about two teaspoons.

Because you kind of want it heaping sort of over the Phyllo dough just like that.

Beautiful, right?

One little more bit there on my board, and now we're going to take our pastry brush again.

We're going to lightly dip it in the butter, and then we just sort of want to coat the edges and sides of the Phyllo dough, so that way when it bakes in our preheated oven at 350 degrees, it gets nice and sort of lightly golden brown.

So now I'm going to get to making the rest of our birds' nests.

OK.

So I'm going to have these join the others on our cookie sheet, and we're going to get them into our preheated oven.

It's at 350 degrees, and they're going to bake for about 12, 15 minutes tops.

And don't forget, we have our bellawriyeh, our shredded Phyllo dough sweet that we made first.

It's sitting in our refrigerator, and it's setting.

It's being weighed down so it can be bound together, And we're also going to get that into the oven as well.

Our bellawriyeh and our birds' nests are blissfully baking away, and they are going to need a delicious syrup to top them.

So we are going to start off with making our rosewater syrup, our maward syrup, and we're starting off with basically a simple syrup base.

OK, so we are going to take 3 cups of our white granulated sugar, and the best part about this syrup is that you can infuse it with either the rosewater, which we're doing today, or the orange blossom water, the mazaher, that we do with other Lebanese sweets.

OK, now we're going to grab our water, so we have 3 cups of sugar, and we're going to do 1 1/2 cups of cold water, and then one more ingredient, which is our lemons, and we're just going to squeeze the juice of half a lemon.

So it should sort of yield about one tablespoon or so, depending upon how juicy the lemons are.

Ha ha!

And the reason why we are adding the lemon juice is so that the syrup doesn't crystallize.

It's going to minimize the possibility of that.

And now we're just going to turn our heat onto high.

And we're going to give this a nice stir just to incorporate and try to dissolve the sugar with the water.

Just like that.

OK. And then once the mixture starts to boil, we're going to lower our heat, and we're going to let it simmer away until it becomes nice and thick, and then once the syrup is nice and thickened, we're going to finish it, again, with our rosewater, which is distilled from rose petals, and it's our rosewater sweets that I was inspired by visiting some of the beautiful rose gardens near me.

Our simple syrup has thickened up beautifully, and now it's ready for the star ingredient, which is going to make it rosewater syrup, our maward.

We're just going to pour in about two teaspoons just like that.

Stir it.

So simple, right?

Simple syrup into rosewater syrup.

And that is all.

And now you can see that I have our birds' nests.

They baked up beautifully in the oven.

They're nice and lightly golden brown.

I'm just going to take a little bit and just sort of spoon it right over the sweet.

We want to make sure to get around the edges of the Phyllo dough, and also generously in the center because that's where all that delicious pistachio nut filling is.

And we want to have a really nice bite for everybody.

Ha ha!

And ourselves.

Just like that.

So now we have some pistachio powder that I made, and I simply made this in our little food chopper.

I just took about 1/2 cup of pistachio nuts, and I just finely, finely ground them into this powder.

It's so simple, and it makes a stunning finish.

So now we're just going to take these off of our cookie sheet.

Just slide them onto a little spatula just like that.

Put them on this really pretty tiered sweet tray that I have here.

Our bellawriyeh baked up beautifully, our shredded Phyllo dough dessert with that delicious pistachio and walnut filling.

And now we are going to spoon our rosewater syrup all over it while it's nice and hot.

That is also the key when making our sweets, is that you want to take the hot syrup to the hot sweet right at once, so that way it can really soak in all of that delicious syrup.

Now, for the best part of all, we are going to taste our delicious rosewater sweets.

I'm just going to cut this into little squares.

I think I'm going to grab myself a nice, crunchy corner piece.

Look at that.

Beautiful!

I cannot wait to taste it.

Just going to show you guys how it looks, just like that.

And I'm also going to grab myself one of our beautiful birds' nests, too.

Just going to sort of cut right into it.

See how beautiful that shredded Phyllo dough is and the pistachios?

Mmm.

And of course our rosewater syrup.

Mmm.

Nothing like the taste of fresh rosewater and the flavor of it and the fragrance of it, and it tastes just absolutely delicious with our shredded Phyllo dough and our pistachio nut filling.

And then let's take a little bite of our birds' nest, which is patiently waiting for us.

[Crunch] Mmm.

You can hear that crunch.

It's nice and crispy, a little bit crunchy.

It has that delicious pistachio nut filling just with the rosewater itself.

So it actually tastes quite differently than the shredded Phyllo dough dessert.

I'm so happy that I was able to share my rosewater sweets with you today, and I hope that you will make these recipes for you and your family and friends soon, and I hope that you also will stop and smell the roses, and until we sweet make again, I wish you and yours to always takloull bil' hanna!

Eat and sweet make in happiness.

Ha ha ha!

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To order a copy, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS or order online at shopPBS.org.

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"Julie Taboulie's Lebanese Kitchen" is made possible by... Man: ♪ Do Your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪ ♪ Do your thing, do your thing ♪ ♪ Syracuse, do your thing ♪