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Citizens! It was 11 years ago at a small Greek food fair in San Jose, CA that My life was irrevocably transformed for the better. After an amazing meal of spitted roast lamb, redolent with garlic and oregano, I wandered over to the dessert kiosk.
There, I saw baklava…and something else. Baklava, but it appeared to have custard between the layers of phyllo! Never having met a custard I didn’t like, I asked for a piece.
It was a revelation — sweet, wonderfully palate-filling and sinfully rich.
The name itself is a small history lesson: galakto is simply Greek for “milk,” while boureko is borrowed directly from the Turkish börek, meaning a stuffed or layered pastry — the dessert’s very name is a linguistic fossil of the roughly 375 years the Ottoman Empire ruled over Greece, from 1453 to 1821. Ancient Greeks already had a taste for custard-filled pies, but neither the paper-thin phyllo nor the practice of soaking pastry in sugar syrup existed in their kitchens; both arrived with the Ottomans, who brought techniques for stacking impossibly thin layered dough that likely trace back even further to Persian and Egyptian precedents. Tradition places galaktoboureko’s specific origin in the wealthy Greek communities of Smyrna and western Asia Minor, and the dessert’s spread into mainland Greek households accelerated dramatically after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, when those Greek communities were displaced and carried their recipes home with them.
The only downside is that it is best served the same day it is made. Once refrigerated past 12 hours, it is no longer celestial — so eat it ALL.
I added some enhancements to the classic recipe, adding a touch of vanilla and rosewater and adding orange flavor from a good shot of Grand Marnier (optional TFD addition, omit for original). It adds more rounded depth to the final product, IMHO. I also removed the cinnamon used in the original recipe, as I am not fond of that spice. Feel free to dust your cut piece with some before eating/serving.
I dedicate this Galaktoboureko recipe to My dear friend John Zacharakis, whose favorite dessert this is.
Citizens, once you’ve had a proper slice of this warm, syrup-soaked custard, you’ll understand exactly why an entire dessert’s name still carries the memory of an empire that vanished two centuries ago.
In a heavy pot, bring the milk to a boil. Sprinkle in the semolina, whisking constantly over very low heat. Add the sugar, then simmer for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring from time to time. Remove from the heat and add the butter and the eggs, 1 by 1, stirring. Blend in the vanilla and rosewater. The mixture will be thick but pourable, like a sauce.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Butter a deep 10-inch baking pan. In the bottom of the pan, layer 8 sheets of phyllo, leaving the edges hanging over the sides of the pan. Brush each sheet generously with clarified butter. Pour the milk mixture over the phyllo layers.
Cut the remaining sheets of phyllo about the size of the pan and brush each sheet with clarified butter. Place the buttered sheets on top of the filling, then brush the hanging bottom sheets with clarified butter and roll them up to seal.
With a very sharp knife, score the top diagonally in 2 directions to make diamond-shaped slits on the surface. (This makes it easier to cut later, and also allows the syrup to penetrate the pie.) Sprinkle with a little water and bake about 1 hour, or until top is light brown and filling has set.
The minute you start baking the pie, begin to make the syrup. Simmer the water with sugar and the ½ of lemon and the orange liqueur for about 1 hour. Remove the lemon half and squeeze the juice into the syrup. Discard the lemon. Pour the syrup over the pie the minute you take it out of the oven. Be careful, syrup will bubble vigorously and can burn you.
Let cool, and serve, cutting pieces along the slits that you made before baking the pie.
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