Moroccan Pastilla

Description
For 12 people

Ingredients

 * 3 bunches of parsley
 * 1½ kg grated onion
 * 200 g of butter
 * ½ teaspoon cinnamon
 * 1 teaspoon pepper
 * ½ teaspoon natural saffron
 * 8 hard-boiled eggs
 * 300 g of almonds cleaned, fried and crushed
 * 1 cup sugar

"Joke"

 * 8 pigeons (or 1 chicken)

Pastry

 * 1 kg of large sheets of phyllo
 * 150 g of butter
 * 2 beaten eggs

"Joke"

 * 1) To place the pigeons in the casserole with parsley, onion, butter, salt, pepper, the saffron, the cinnamon and a little sugar.
 * 2) To cook with soft fire and add a little water as necessary.
 * 3) Remove the pigeons when they are cooked and to let the sauce reduce while stirring until the liquid disappears.
 * 4) Remove the bones from the pigeons and place in a salad bowl, mix almonds with the sugar in another salad bowl.
 * 5) Cut hard-boiled eggs in small pieces in a third salad bowl.

Pastry

 * 1) Butter the mould (large tart plate) then lay out a first layer of sheets (smooth face down) making them overlap and letting them overflow by ⅓ outside the circle.
 * 2) Add some phyllo sheets in the center to consolidate.
 * 3) Spread out a layer of sauce, to pose pieces of pigeons above, powders with sweetened almonds and egg crumbs.
 * 4) Cover with sheets.
 * 5) Start the operation again until there is no more of the "joke".
 * 6) Fold the sheets which extend outside the mould back over, stick them together with back over beaten egg then cover sheets again (smooth face up) overlapping and overflowing outside.
 * 7) Slip these sheets by lower part as a bed is bordered.
 * 8) Wash of softened butter and to gild with egg.
 * 9) Cook with average heat (ht 4) during 20 minutes.
 * 10) Turn the pastry out onto a large dish, introduce a few pieces of butter below without breaking it and gild a few minutes.
 * 11) Gently slip the pastry onto a serving dish, decorate it with sugar swirl icing and cinnamon and serve it with sugar icing on saucers.