Ingredients:

• 1250gr of kataifi pastry
• 2 teacups of walnuts hearts (or even almond mixed)
• 2 teacups of melted unsalted butter
• 1-2 tbsp of powder cinnamon
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 1 egg
• Crushed Pistachio nuts for garnishing (optional)

Syrup ingredients:

• 1250gr of sugar
• 6 cups of water
• 1 thin strip of lemon rind
• 4-5 cloves
• One cinnamon stick
• 3 tsp of lemon juice

Method:

• Crush coarsely the walnuts or almonds or even a combination of the two and put them in a bowl.
• Add the sugar, the egg and cinnamon.
• Knead all ingredients so that they become a mass.
• Butter your hands with the melted butter (be careful not to be too hot) and with buttered hands gently hackle the kataifi pastry to separate the strands.
• Take some quantity of kataifi pastry, as much as it needs for one kataifi and open it up (always with buttered hands).
• Place at the end some of the walnut or almond mixture and roll in a cylindrical form tight enough and being careful to also roll in the ends, so that it does not unfolded.
• Repeat the above procedure, taking some kataifi filo pastry; open it up again, place some filling mixture and roll it into a cylinder.
• Place all the finished kataifi rolls in a line the one next to the other in a buttered baking pan.
• With a spoon pour over them the remaining melted butter.
• Bake in a preheated oven for about half hour roughly, perhaps and little more, at 180 degrees Celsius (see conversions), being careful they do not burn.
• If we see that “they start browning too much” cover the baking pan with aluminum foil.
• Prepare the syrup by boiling all the syrup ingredients for a few minutes.
• Pour over the hot kataifi when it comes out of the oven with the hot syrup.
• If you want it to be crispy, leave it aside uncovered to cool down.
• It is better to cover the baking pan with foil in order that with the steam that will be created it will soften the syrup and it is irrigated better.
• Doing it the second way (the way I do it), it becomes soft and more juicy.
• Sprinkle some crushed pistachio on top of each piece, let it cool down and serve. (Optional)
• Goon luck and enjoy.

Variation:

• If you make a thick custard for Galaktoboyreko you can fill with this the kataifi pastry instead of the walnut-almond mixture.
• The rest of the procedure remains the same.