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Katerina's Kouzina

Diples: Greek pastry with honey and walnuts

Every year-end and at every big celebration (weddings, christenings, a name day or an engagement) we make “Diples” on our island Poros. This is a tradition from our region of the Peloponnesos, and it is well maintained on Poros.

Honey and walnuts

Diples is a very simple dough, rich with eggs and flour which we aromatize with oranges. They are rolled out in a fine layer, cut into strips and then fried. Once ready we cover them with honey and walnuts. Originally people making diples would use what they had available in the house to make something nice to offer to their families and friends. In the countryside all they basically had were some eggs, flour, olive oil to fry them in, honey and walnuts for the top.

Folding diples

‘Dipla’ actually means ‘folded’. When making the diples, you have to fold and fold and fold the pastry while frying, so that the result will be a folded and lightly fried body of dough. The process of folding has a deeper meaning (of course, we are Greeks after all). My mother always says that making diples for a wedding is like a prayer and a wish for the future couple to stay happily folded for the rest of their life.

But here comes my meaning of the word dipla:

We are ‘folding’ people together, binding them together with food. On our tables we create friendships and family bonds, we bring everyone together. Those relationships are the most important and they are the ones that give a true meaning to life. Diples with all their folds represent exactly that; the light but strong bond that exists in a friendship and between all members of any family.

New Year’s wish

I predict that when you eat them, you will fall in love with the people around you. Not only the people that make the diples or those that they are made for, but most of all with the ones that help you clean up the mess created while making them. I wish that in 2020 we will have more and more of those precious moments sitting all together around a table with our family and friends. I hope that there are going to be more diples and more ‘folding’ with each other.

During the last 15 years that I have been giving cooking lessons at Odyssey and before that in Holland, a lot of guests and fellow cooks have learned how to make filo dough, and we had always super fun making it. For those of you that have tried making filo dough with me, this is going to be an easy recipe.

I and the entire Odyssey family wish you a very happy 2020

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Ingredients For the dough

400 gr all-purpose flour
4 eggs
2 tablespoons ouzo
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
150 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
Vegetable oil for frying

Ingredients For the syrup

400 ml honey
400 ml water
1 cinnamon stick

Ingredients For the top

Crushed walnuts

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the dough and mix them. Knead the mixture well. Your dough will be soft but not sticky; it should be easy to handle.
2. Let your dough rest, covered with a plastic wrap and set it aside for at least ½ hour, preferably much more. You can actually make it the day before.
3. Divide the dough into smaller balls. On a floured surface, roll out each ball. Use a lot of flour for dusting the dough so it does not stick on your table or work top. It is easy to do, it just needs a bit of patience. Of course, you could use the pasta machine instead.
4. Cut your pastry into thin strips, approximately 20cm long by 7cm wide.
5. In a deep cooking pan pour a generous amount of vegetable oil and let it get hot.
6. Take 2 forks and roll the dough strip to form that characteristic folded shape you see in the pictures. If this seems really too complicated, an alternative is to fry the diples straight and unfolded. No problem really.
7. Take the diples out of the oil the moment they are golden brown and let them drain in a colander.
8. Prepare the honey syrup: In a medium big cooking pan, add all the ingredients for the honey syrup and let them boil for a few minutes or until it foams up a bit.
9. Take the pan off the heat and let it cool a bit. Remove the foam with a spoon. Take 2 spoons and hold the diples in the warm honey for about 2 minutes, pressing them lightly in the honey so that they are dipped in the golden liquid. Take 1 or 2 at a time (not more) then take them out of the honey syrup and lay them on a plate. Once on the plate you sprinkle the diples with the crushed walnuts.
10. Diples can be kept at room temperature for a few days, covered loosely with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Do not cover them while they are still warm or they will become soggy. In the refrigerator, the diples might stay good for several weeks.

Servings : 30 diples
Ready in : 120 Minutes
Recipe Type : Christmas

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