Madhouse recipe : Coconut & Honey Briouates (and how to rescue dried out filo pastry)

I've already shared lots of recipes for briouates, which are little Moroccan filo pastry parcels that can be stuffed with a multitude of sweet or savoury fillings - you might like to check out my recipes for tuna & potato briouates, briouates stuffed with spinach and meat and soft cheese and chorizo briouates. A traditional filling is almond and honey, but I swapped almonds for coconut, as it was what was in the cupboard, and also added in a sachet of chocolate-flavoured Ready Brek, just because it needed using up. It could be left out though and replaced with extra coconut or ground almonds.

Coconut & Honey Briouates

ingredients :

2 sachets (65g) chocolate Ready Brek (very finely ground oats)

75g dessicated coconut

50g icing sugar

50g runny honey

2tbsp orange blossom water

filo pastry sheets

Put all of the ingredients except the filo pastry in a bowl and stir to combine. Add extra honey if needed to create a smooth, sticky, uniform mixture.

I was using up half a pack of filo pastry that had dried out so that it was crispy and shattered into pieces if you tried to bend or fold it.I wasn't sure if I'd be able to resurrect it but thought it was worth a try. Run two clean tea towels under the tap for a few seconds then wring them out so that they are just damp, not dripping wet. Place a crispy dried out sheet of filo between the tea towels, leave for 15 seconds and - as if by magic - it's becomes pliable enough to work with again.

Place a couple of spoonfuls of filling on each filo sheet and fold it over until you get a rough triangle shape (well, that's the idea anyway !). Brush with a little melted butter or olive oil and bake in the oven at 180° for about 10 minutes until beautifully golden and crispy.

I was amazed that by using totally non-oriental ingredients like dessicated coconut and Ready Brek, I managed to create something that tasted fairly authentically Moroccan. It was all down to the honey and orange blossom water, but it was certainly a great way of using up odds and ends, making this a perfect contender for this month's #KitchenClearout linky.