INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

This is my absolute favorite recipe, but it's rather involved (for me
anyway hehe) I don't make it nearly as often as I would like to eat it
:-) I always use chicken as I don't have any pigeons handy, and I've
never been able to find saffron and even if I could I understand it'd
cost my kids' college tuition to pay for it. I also always use the
phyllo, as it's readily available. I got the recipe from "Couscous  and
other Good Food from Morocco" by Paula Wolfert. (Which by the way  is a
wonderfully informative book if you're at all interested in  Morroccan
customs etc.)  Wash the poultry well and pull out as much fat as
possible from the  cavities. Crush the garlic and make a paste of it
with 2 tablespoons  salt. Rub the poultry with the paste, then rinse
well and drain. Put  the squabs or chickens in a 5 1/2 quart casserole
with the giblets,  herbs, onion, spices, half the butter, a little
salt, and 3 cups  water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover
and simmer for 1  hour. Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in the
skillet and brown the  almonds lightly. Drain on paper towels. When
cool, crush them with a  rolling pin until coarsely ground, or run them
through a nut grinder.  Combine the almonds with 1/2 cup confectioners'
sugar and 2 teaspoons  ground cinnamon. Set aside. Remove the poultry,
giblets, cinnamon  sticks, and any loose bones from the casserole and
set aside. By  boiling rapidly, uncovered, reduce the sauce in the
casserole to  approximately 1 3/4 cups, then add the lemon juice. Beat
the eggs  until frothy, then pour into the simmering sauce and stir
continuously until the eggs cook and congeal. (They should become
curdy, stiff, and dry.) Taste for salt and set aside. Remove all the
bones from the squabs or chickens. Shred the poultry into 1 1/2 inch
pieces and chop the giblets coarsely. Heat the remaining butter. When
the foam subsides, clarify it by pouring off the clear liquid butter
into a small bowl and discarding the milky solids. Up to this point
the dish can be prepared in advance, even the day before. Preheat the
oven to 425  7.Unroll the pastry leaves, keeping them under a damp
towel to  prevent them from drying out. Brush some of the clarified
butter over  the bottom and sides of a 13 inch cake pan, or pizza pan,
or paella  pan, then cover the bottom of the pan with a pastry leaf.
Arrange 6  more leaves so that they half cover the bottom of the pan
and half  extend over the sides. (The entire bottom of the pan should
be  covered.) Brush the extended leaves with butter so they do not dry
out. (If you are using warka, arrange about 15 to 18 leaves around  the
bottom and sides; there is no need to butter extended leaves)  8. Fold
4 leaves in half and bake in the oven for 30 seconds, or until  crisp
but not too browned, or fry the leaves on an oiled skillet.  (this is
unnecessary if using warka.)  9. Place chunks of poultry and giblets
around the inner edges of the  pan, then work toward the center so that
the pastry is covered with a  layer of shredded poultry. Cover this
layer with the well-drained egg  mixture from step 3, and the four
baked or fried pastry leaves.  10. Sprinkle the almond-sugar mixture
over the pastry. Cover with all  but 2 of the remaining pastry leaves,
brushing each very lightly with  butter.  11.Fold the overlapping
leaves in over the top to cover the pie. Brush  lightly with butter.
Put the remaining 2 leaves over the top, lightly  buttering each, and
fold these neatly under the pie (like  continued in part 2

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 6221
Calories From Fat: 4849
Total Fat: 560.5g
Cholesterol: 2348.1mg
Sodium: 1331.5mg
Potassium: 4492.1mg
Carbohydrates: 180g
Fiber: 54g
Sugar: 65.4g
Protein: 172.7g