Wade through the sacks of beans, nuts and flour, past the olives, dried fruit and cookware, to the back of the welcoming Oriental Pastry and Grocery, and you might find a tray of fresh baklava still warm from the oven. Baklava’s ingredients of spices, nuts and honey once made it an exclusive treat for only the wealthiest of sultans. Now it’s enjoyed by many in more than one-fifth of the world’s countries. Its golden brown layers of phyllo dough with a sweetened nut filling is baked and sometimes sprinkled with pistachios. A spiced honey syrup is poured over the warm pastry and allowed to soak into the layers. The melt-in-your-mouth version at Oriental Pastry is divine - light, crispy, buttery and neither too sweet, nor too sticky. This isn’t surprising for a shop whose owners are known for their generosity, knowledge and passion for food.

To writer Diana Abu-Jaber, baklava is revered. In her memoir, The Language of Baklava, she writes, “I watched my aunts for a very long time before they allowed me to make the dough for baklava. It was very sacred to them; the ingredients couldn’t be handled too much or the resulting dough would be heavy and leaden. And, there’s something very sexy about it, too.”

Oriental Pastry and Grocery
170 Atlantic Avenue
718-875-7687

Originally published on Until Monday: Brooklyn