Opa!

Kataifi me crema

Sunday's yummy crab pasta made us impatient for our yearly Florida vacation (we leave in less than a month! woooo!).

Then I started thinking about Tarpon Springs and absolutely had to make a batch of kataifi me crema. I can't eat it until tonight (we are having a friend over for dinner, and it wouldn't look good to serve a dessert with a giant chunk carved out of it), but if the many fingerfuls and crispy shreds I stole during the baking process are any indication, it came out beautifully. It's way easier than the length of the recipe might lead you to believe.* If you've ever worked with phyllo dough and found it a little fiddly, be assured that kataifi is much quicker and more indestructable.

As wonderful as the Greek bakeries in Tarpon Springs are, they have a tendency to cover everything in sickly-sweet fake whipped cream, which I then have to scrape off...leaving me with half the pastry I thought I had. This is the pure stuff! If only it came with all the charming atmosphere and the smell of the ocean!

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* I used the second method, where you bake both layers of shredded dough separately and then assemble everything at the end. It sounded like a much better idea than letting everything percolate together in the oven.

UPDATE:
Even better than expected. Mmmmff...drool...