AMALENA

You can call this either Amalena’s crowned seven-species or Amalena’s crowned shivat ha’minim, or something else completely, I just figured it needed a name!

This was an experiment that went AMAZINGLY. I gotta share it. Great for celebrating Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Shavuot, Tu B’Shvat, Hanukka, or just because. It’s sweet, crunchy, chewy, and has little pops of tart pomegranate so every bite is textural and tasty perfection.

This is very Israeli inspired, relying on the shivat ha’minim aka the seven species of Israel, plus eggs and honey. The seven species are crops recorded in Israel since biblical times and I wanted to make a dessert incorporating all of them, plus honey for a sweet new year. Made some mistakes along the way, but those mistakes turned into an awesome end product, so win win!

Ingredients

For the filling:

• A bunch of pomegranate seeds
• 12 dates (boil these and save 1/2 cup of water)
• 3-4 figs
• a handful of grapes

For the dough:

• 2 cups wheat flour
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup date water (you get this from boiling your dates)
• pinch of salt

For the crown:

• 1 cup pearled barley
• 2 cups water
• honey (idk how much, until it looks right)

You’ll also need extra flour for dusting and a bunch of olive oil for frying.

Instructions

1. Start boiling your dates for about twenty minutes. Strain them, but save 1/2 cup of the water you boiled them in, then set them aside to cool off.
2. Make your dough.
   • First mix the wet ingredients together (2 eggs, 1/2 cup of date water, 3 tablespoons of olive oil).
   • Mix in 2 cups of flour and a little pinch of salt.
   • Kneed the dough for 5-10 minutes ish.
     • If you’re wondering why there’s no yeast, it’s because I forgot to activate any and didn’t realize until after I’d already made the dough. So, uh, yeah, no yeast in this recipe? That means no rise time, so yay?
     • That said, I’m probably going to try remaking this and doing a proper rise for the dough with yeast because it did not save well, was basically good for one maybe two days.
3. Make your honeyed barley.
   • Take 1 cup of pearled barley and cook for 10 minutes in 2 cups of water.
   • Drain the barley and drizzle a bunch of honey over it. Maybe a little more than that if it’s in the pan and looks too pale.
   • Cook in a pan until golden brown and set aside spread out on a plate to cool.
     • Fun fact, I originally wanted to just mix barley flour with wheat flour, but Publix didn’t have any and my coffee grinder broke so I couldn’t make it… and that’s how this happened.

4. Make your filling.

• If you got dates that aren’t pitted, slide off the peels and pull out the pits. Technically the peels are edible so it’s probably fine if you leave it, but that’s how I learned to do dates.
• Put your dates, figs, and grapes in a blender and make a nice paste. Then grab a bunch of pomegranate seeds and stir them in whole.

5. Pull apart small balls of dough and then flatten them into circles about the size of your palm.

6. Spoon filling into the middle of the dough circle.

7. Close the dough into a ball with the filling in the middle, pinching and twisting the dough so that it seals securely. Roll it gently a little to get that round shape.

8. Heat up an inch and a half or so, maybe two inches, of olive oil in a small sauce pan. Use medium heat.

9. Carefully drop your pastries into the hot oil and cook for between one to two minutes, or until golden.

10. Pull out your pastries and set aside to cool.

11. Take small amounts of honeyed barley and put them on top of your pastries to make a ‘crown’.

12. EAT!