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Sütlü Nuriye

Hot milk is poured over it instead of syrup, which is what makes it pale.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter), dairy (whole milk).

Ingredients

the milk

to finish

Method

  1. HOT MILK IS POURED OVER IT INSTEAD OF SYRUP, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES IT PALE. Everything else about the assembly is a layered nut pastry: filo, butter, ground nuts, scored and baked. But where a syrup pastry gets a clear sugar syrup and ends up amber and glossy, this gets sweetened milk thickened very lightly with cornflour, and the finished tray is ivory-white and matt. It also eats completely differently: the milk softens the pastry rather than glazing it, so instead of shattering it is yielding and faintly creamy.
  2. THE NUTS ARE HAZELNUTS, NOT PISTACHIOS OR WALNUTS. Two hundred and fifty grams, coarsely ground. Hazelnut and milk belong together in a way pistachio and milk do not, and pistachios would also tint the white filling green in patches, which defeats the point of the colour.
  3. THE MILK IS POURED ON HOT AND THE PASTRY IS HOT TOO. Straight from the oven, straight from the pan. Both hot is what gets the milk absorbed all the way to the bottom layer. Cold milk on hot pastry sits on top and runs to the corners; hot milk on cold pastry soaks only the top third.
  4. THE CORNFLOUR IS ONLY TWO TABLESPOONS AND IT MATTERS. Just enough to give the milk a little body so it clings to the layers rather than running straight through to the bottom of the tray and sitting there. More and it becomes a custard sitting on pastry, which is a different and much heavier thing.
  5. IT IS CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE BAKING. Scored through every layer to the base of the tin with a sharp knife. The cuts are the channels the milk runs down -- uncut, it cannot get past the buttered top sheets at all, and the milk simply pools.
  6. IT IS LEFT SEVERAL HOURS AND NOT REFRIGERATED. Four to six hours at room temperature for the milk to be taken up completely. The fridge sets the butter in the layers hard and the pastry turns waxy.
  7. The filo layered in a buttered tin, HALF the sheets, each brushed with melted butter.
  8. The ground hazelnuts spread evenly over.
  9. The remaining sheets layered on, each buttered, the top one generously.
  10. CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH to the base of the tin into diamonds or squares.
  11. Baked at 180°C for 35 to 40 MINUTES, until golden and crisp.
  12. MEANWHILE the milk, sugar and cornflour whisked together and brought to a simmer, cooked 3 MINUTES until very lightly thickened. Kept HOT.
  13. The HOT milk poured evenly over the HOT pastry straight from the oven, down the cut lines.
  14. LEFT 4 to 6 HOURS at room temperature. NOT refrigerated.
  15. TESTED: the bottom layer should be soaked and there should be no milk pooled in the tin. The tray should be ivory and matt, not amber.
  16. Dusted with ground hazelnuts and lifted out on the cut lines.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes