I came up with this recipe because I had a lot of leftover brioche and phyllo, and I needed to use it up someway, somehow. Luckily for me, there is a dessert that literally can use up both, which meant that I did not have to sacrifice space in my freezer for either of those things. Om ali is an Egyptian dessert, consisting of either bread or phyllo, baked in a sweet milk or cream. It is basically Egyptian bread pudding. The main differences here include the possibility of using phyllo instead of bread, and the omission of eggs, resulting in a less dense and rich, and more light and airy texture to the dessert. Typical things you would add to om ali would be rose or orange blossom water, spices such as cardamom or cinnamon, and pistachios, raisins, and coconut flakes for texture. The end result is this almost melt-in-the-mouth bread pudding with subtle textures running through the entire dessert. The meaty texture of the raisins and pistachios, the crispy edges of the pudding, the crunch of the phyllo, it is quite pleasant and delightful! I served my om ali with a pistachio-cardamom cream, since a traditional om ali might be garnished with pistachios and rose petals, but I wanted to go a different route from that, and make the pistachios into more of an accompanying sauce to add another texture to the dessert.

For the case of my recipe, I used the leftover brioche I had, as well as the leftover bits of homemade phyllo that have been hogging up shelves in my freezer, as the “bread” component. I included the recipe for the homemade phyllo, but if you want to go full-on with the bread, just quadruple the amount of bread you are using. For the milk, the recipe calls for any kind of milk, but I used goat’s milk for mine specifically. Camel milk is very expensive, but it would work beautifully here too if you can get ahold of some. When I say a pinch of something, and you are unsure of how big a pinch is supposed to be, you can always just measure out the spices using a 1/8 teaspoon. That’s as close to a metric Fred-pinch as you can get, I suppose? The good thing here is that it is relatively hard to overseason this kind of dessert, since the bread and phyllo really soak up all of those flavors. That being said, obviously don’t go overboard with the spices either, unless you want eating this om ali to feel like the cinnamon challenge. With the pistachio cream, my only warning is to watch the temperatures as you go. Trying to blend the pistachios with a hot milk could result in your blender exploding. So let the milk simmer with the pistachios to soften them, but then let the milk cool down, just so that you don’t run the risk of burning yourself when blending the pistachio milk.

For the phyllo:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp water
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp olive oil or melted unsalted butter

In a bowl, mix together the flour, water, and salt to form a dough. Divide the dough into 4 pieces, and roll each of them out on a floured surface into a 5-inch disk. Brush 3 of the pieces with olive oil or butter, and then stack them on top of each other, so that the un-brushed disk is the piece sitting on top of the stack. Roll out the stack as thinly as possible. Bake the dough on a lined sheet tray at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes. Crush the baked dough into smaller pieces for the om ali.

For the om ali mixture:
baked phyllo*
1/3 cup bread, crusts removed and shredded into smaller pieces
1/4 cup crushed pistachios
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup toasted coconut flakes
1 cup milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of cinnamon
a pinch of cardamom
a pinch of clove
1/2 tsp orange blossom or rose water
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, toss together the phyllo, bread, pistachios, raisins, and coconut flakes. In a pot, heat up the milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and clove first. Once all of those ingredients are dissolved together, stir into that the orange blossom or rose water, and the vanilla extract. Pour that liquid onto the other ingredients and toss until combined. Pour into a shallow baking container(I just used a 6-inch oven-proof nonstick pan) and bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes.

For the pistachio-cardamom cream:
1/4 cup pistachios
a pinch of cardamom
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp orange blossom or rose water

In a pot, heat up the pistachios, cardamom, and milk until the milk comes up to a simmer. Allow the milk to cool down before transferring those ingredients with everything else into a blender. Puree until smooth, and sieve out any lumps.