Fruit Leather Walnut Rolls

Fruit leather, pestil in Turkish, is popular all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It’s fruit juice or pulp that’s been dried into chewy strips, originally to preserve excess summer fruit for winter. It’s pastel in Armenian, pastilos in Greek and is also known as bastik in some parts of Turkey. Grapes, apricots, plums, apples, pears, mulberries – any juicy fruit can be used to make this tasty, healthy snack. I’ve tried making my own, but it’s a lot of work when you can buy the real thing from Middle Eastern grocery stores and even supermarkets. Somer Sivrioglu has a recipe for pestil in his cookbook Anatolia if you’d like to try your hand at it … otherwise, like me, you can just take inspiration from what he does with it and roll it around a delicious filling of dried fruit and walnuts to make these bite-sized treats. I love the combination of apricot leather and dried apricots, but feel free to use whatever leather and dried fruits you like.

Makes 8 pieces