Umm Ali (Pastry Pudding with Nuts)

Variations

• The name: Arabic for the mother of Ali. The story attached to it says that after the death of the 13th-century Egyptian sultan Izz al-Din Aybak, his first wife had this made and distributed across the country to mark her victory. True or not, what is clear is that the dish began as a way of using up dry leftover bread.
• Originally bread: puff pastry is the modern version; traditionally it was Egyptian flatbread, eish, dried out. Rusks or biscotti work the same way.
• With filo: filo gives much thinner, crisper layers. It also drinks the milk faster, so it has to go into the oven immediately.
• With leftover croissants: already buttery and layered, so they suit it well — and a day-old one is better than a fresh one.
• Against French toast — the difference is the egg: both feed milk to dry bread. French toast has egg that sets and holds the bread in shape; this has no egg at all, so the milk simply soaks in and only the cream on top browns. Which is why one is a slice and this is eaten with a spoon.
• Against lamington: the second dish on this site where being dry is a requirement, not a problem. There, stale cake is what survives being dipped on six faces; here, dry pastry is what survives the milk with its layers intact.
• Against baklava: the same nuts and much the same pastry, with opposite aims. Baklava manages its syrup so the layers absorb as little as possible and stay crisp; this one soaks up as much milk as it can.
• Against koshari: both are everyday Egyptian food, and both are built the same way — leftovers layered up into one dish.

Tips

• Bake the pastry dry first. Nearly every failure is here. Underbaked pastry dissolves into paste the instant hot milk reaches it and the layers are gone. Take it to the point where it audibly shatters under your finger.
• Cool it before breaking it. Straight from the oven it is still soft and squashes; cold, it breaks properly.
• Break it coarsely. Pieces about two finger joints across. Broken small, the layers disappear and the whole thing turns to thick porridge.
• Toast the nuts beforehand. Nothing in the milk will ever toast them. The flavour has to be made in a dry pan first (blooming spices).
• Hot milk, and into the oven at once. Cold milk means the pastry is dissolving all the while the dish warms up. Soaking time is a loss here, not a gain.
• Do not boil the milk. Steaming, with the edges trembling, is enough; boiled, it skins and catches (dairy and heat).
• Do not stir the cream in. Left sitting on top it browns into a lid. Stirred through, everything gets thinner and the top will not colour.
• Do not walk away from the grill. A cream surface goes from colouring to burnt in about thirty seconds.
• Serve it warm. Straight from the oven it floods the spoon; chilled, the cream sets hard. Ten minutes out is about right.
• Reheat in the oven, never the microwave, which turns the pastry completely soggy. Ten minutes at 180°C brings the top back.