Finikia – Greek Pastries
Finikia is a type of Greek cookie. This is the Armenian variant that I learned from a friend from Yerevan. Greece and Armenia have always had a very friendly relationship, which is reflected also in the mutual exchange of recipes. In Armenia and I guess also in Greece, these pastries are usually served at Christmas. These are the healthier variant of sometimes too-fatty and too-sweet pastries served in festive times. There is no need to use butter, eggs or milk so you don’t compromise your diet that much and don’t have to live on baking soda to regain normal digestion. I kept the recipe in its original form. I just allowed myself to use goji instead of raisins to remain faithful to Chinese medicine.
dough
1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of water
2 large spoons of vodka (Armenia used to be a part of the Soviet Union, so it was probably a mandatory ingredient, however, we can skip it as optional.)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 tablespoon of citric acid (By the way, citric acid is not a synthetic compound. It was isolated from lemon juice in 1784. However, not everyone has citric acid powder in the kitchen, so if you don’t have it on hand or you simply don’t want to use it, you can easily substitute lemon juice instead. I would use juice from 1 lemon. The amount of added water would then be reduced, let’s say, by half. I admit I did not try it this way, so you have to experiment a bit, especially with the density of the dough.)
1 large spoon of honey
3-4 cups of smooth spelt flour as needed
filling
1/2 cup of walnuts (presoaked)
1/2 cup of goji berries (presoaked and gently dried with a napkin)
2 large spoons of cane sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
maple syrup or honey syrup, which we will finally use for the icing
Mix all the ingredients for the dough. Make balls of walnut size and leave one to two hours rest aside.
From this amount of dough, we can produce about 30 balls. Take the dough balls one by one and make small pancakes from them, put the filling in, wrap them and put the seam down into the baking dish.
Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes at 180 degrees until golden brown. Immediately after baking pour syrup over the cookies.
This recipe as a whole is warm in nature. Also, baking in the oven adds to the food the energy of the fire, so similar kinds of pastries are particularly suited to cold days. Let’s have a closer look at important ingredients.
About the benefits of Goji Berries, you can read here.
Cinnamon
is warm in nature and has a spicy and sweet taste. It enters the meridians of the heart, spleen and kidneys, supports blood circulation, and heats up. We can use it for cold in the stomach, vomiting and diarrhoea or rheumatism.
Spelt
is warm in nature and has a sweet taste. It strengthens the spleen and helps with intestinal problems.
Walnuts
are warm in nature and sweet taste, they strengthen the kidneys and lungs and relieve people suffering from asthma. They also work against constipation, lower back pain, beriberi or spontaneous semen leakage due to insufficient kidney function. They help fight impotence. However, raw walnuts are not very digestible, so it is better to cook them briefly, soak them in lukewarm water for two or three hours, or at least drizzle them with lemon juice. People with gallbladder problems and people suffering from chronic diarrhoea, or a damp cough, should rather avoid them or at least reduce their consumption.
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