The Crescent of Sweets – Fresh Made Atayef Recipe

The Holy month of Ramadan is about spirituality, invest your relationship with God and yourself by appreciating what you have, be grateful to your life, remember the foundation of your faith. But this year, People have been forced to do that due to the pandemic and it has been for the last couple of months. 

You reminded yourself to be kind, be grateful, be fair and these are values that all believers and non-believers share regardless of their belief system.

With that being said, I want to help you with this post to plan properly the next 30 days of Iftar. Being a stay at home mom or dad, or a hardworking parent, or even a single employee, everyday you worry about the effort you have to make to prepare your meal. 

The key is planning.

1- Start by preparing a list of all the dishes you have in mind and stick it on your fridge. So whenever you feel you are confused or lost, go back to the list and get inspired. My list is as follows:

For Soups: 

• Lentil Soup

• Vegetables Soup

• Mushroom Soup

• Broccoli Soup

• Chicken and Vermicelli Soup

Appetizers:

• Fattoush

• Tabbouleh

• Cheese / Beef Sambousek

• Fatteh with Chicken / Beef / Eggplants

• Roasted potatoes with coriander and garlic

• Spinach Pies

• Mashed Potatoes

• Cold Vine Leaves

Main Dish:

• Beef / Chicken Shawarma

• Steak (Beftek)

• Beans Stew (Fasoulia) with rice

• Mloukhye with rice

• Okra Stew (Bemye) with rice

• Peas Stew with rice

• Stuffed Zuccini (Mahashi)

• Sheikh Me7she (Assorted vegetables stuffed with beef and minced beef with tomato sauce)

• Chicken Pane (Escalope)

• Burgers

• Beef Storganoff

• Kafta with poatoes and tomatoes

• Kafta with Tahini Sauce

• Sea Food Night (Shrimps / Grilled Fish)

• Saudi Kabsah

• Chicken / Beef Fajita

• Mixed sausages (Sujuk / Makanek)

• Green Beans with tomatoes (Loubya b zeit)

• Green Beans Beef Stew (Loubya b lahmeh)

• Mixed Barbecue Grill

• Grilled Chicken with potatoes (Djej bl Sonye)

• Chicken Tawook

• Pizza Chicken Barbecue

• Pasta and variations (Beef, Tomato Sauce, Tagliatelle, Bachamel, White Sauce, Pesto Sauce etc.)

• Grilled Beef Cubes with tomatoes and onions

• Fried Potato with eggs and cheese

• Fried Zuccini with eggs

• Grilled Salmon with steamed vegetables

2- Tips about preparing and freezing basics:

• You can prepare and freeze a bunch of cheese or beef sambousek at the beginning of the month or you can do it on weekends weekly 

• You can prepare a big portion of soup weekly, so you don’t have to prepare it everyday.

• For Salads or Fattoush, I wash, dry and chop the green vegetables and store them in a container. Everyday, pull some out for your meal and just chop some tomatoes on top and add the dressing.

• Preparing Salads Dressing Jars

• Freeze Coriander and Garlic mix in big amount in the freezer (I mainly use it for stews)

• Prepare big amount of pies / pastries and freeze them. On the day, defrost and bake them.

• Prepare big amount of kafta. Separate them in bags, for example in each bag you can have 4 – 5 pieces based on your meal intake. You can do the same for Chicken pane (Escalope).

• If a meal requires a lot of effort, prepare the basic at the night before like cook the chicken, beef broth, marinate chicken or steaks.

For today, I will be sharing one of Ramadan favorite sweets. The crescent of Sweets: Fresh Made Atayef. You can prepare a huge quantity, separate them in bags and freeze them for later use.

These ingredients will give you around 25-30 pieces. You can stuff the Atayef with mixed nuts, you can make fresh cream (Ashta) or even packed cream. And if you are lazy, just eat it with Nutella!

Ingredients:

- 2 cups of flour

- 1/2 cup of white semolina fine flour

- 3 table spoon of sugar

- 1 teaspoon instant yeast

- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/4 tea spoon of baking soda

- 1/4 cup of rose water

- 3 cups of warm water

For the stuffing, I will be prepare it with mixed nuts. As I said, you can use ready or fresh made ashta or even Nutella.

- handful of crushed walnuts

- handful of pine nuts

- 1 table spoon of sugar

Directions:

- In a mixer, start by adding the water, then add all the other dry ingredients except the baking soda.

- Using an electrical mixer, pulse the batter till its smooth.

- Add the baking soda, then pulse it again. The batter should not be thick, the texture will be smooth.

- Using a colander, drain the mixture so that the mixture will be homogeneous and doesn't have any bulk particles in it.

- Leave the mixture covered and to rest for 15 minutes.

- Heat a non-stick pan at medium heat, grease it with oil and wipe it off with a tissue.

- Scoop half a deep spoon (normally the one we use it for soup) and pour it in the pan. Small bubbles will start to pop out of it. Once no longer bubbles start to form and you can see the piece getting dry (no more wet spots on top) then you can remove it. The first couple of times will be just a trial, so you can know if you need to increase or decrease the heat it will all depend on your oven and the pan used. for my cooker, The amount was fine, and I cooked it at medium heat. Repeat till the batter is done.

- Tip: You don't have to cook them all in the same day. You can prepare batches and freeze them for later use.

- In a small bowl, mix the crushed walnuts, pine nuts and the sugar.

- Put the atayef in the palm of your hand, add one tea spoon of the nut mix in the center.

- Start joining the the ends as shown in the pictures below.

- To cook the atayef, there are two options. You can either deep fry it or you can go with a lighter version, you can brush the atayef with oil and bake it in a pan in the oven.

- In medium heated oven ( around 180 should be fine), Bake the atayef for 10 minutes, then remove it and flip the atayef to cook the other side so we can get the nice golden color. (It wont be as golden as when you fry the atayef, but the point is not how the atayef look like but how it tastes and you have a good time preparing it).

- For the syrup, you can get ready made syrup or you can make it from scratch. In a small heated pot, add two cups of sugar and one cup of water, Leave it till it boils. Finish it off with a tea spoon of rose water. Leave it to cool completely before pouring it on the atayef.

- In a plate, pour the syrup on top of the atayef and garnish crushed pistachios.

Et Voilà! Ramadan's Favorite Sweet!