phyllo

Pastry made with phyllo

Phyllo, filo, or fillo (Greek φύλλο, fýllo, meaning leaf or sheet) (Turkish Yufka) dough is paper-thin sheets of raw, unleavened flour dough used for making pastries in Middle Eastern, Greek and other regional cuisines.^[1]

Phyllo is used in many of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and to make flaky pies and pastries, including baklava, börek, gözleme, spanakopita, tyropita and bstilla. Phyllo is also used for güllaç, a Turkish dessert mostly eaten in the holy month of Ramadan, where layers of walnuts and rose water are placed one by one in warm milk. A similar Egyptian dessert is called Umm Ali.

History

An early, thick form of phyllo appears to be of Central Asian Turkic origin.^[2] As early as the 11th century, the Diwan Lughat al-Turk, a dictionary of Turkic dialects by Mahmud Kashgari recorded pleated/folded bread as one meaning of the word yuvgha, which is related to the word yufka.^[2] The practice of stretching raw dough into paper-thin sheets is a later development, probably evolving in the kitchens of the Topkapı Palace.^[3]

Preparation

Phyllo dough is made with flour, water, and a small amount of oil and raki or white vinegar, though some dessert recipes also call for egg yolks. Homemade phyllo takes time and skill, requiring progressive rolling and stretching to a single thin and very large sheet. A very big table and a long roller are used, with continual flouring between layers to prevent tearing.

Machines for producing filo pastry were perfected in the 1970s, which have come to dominate the market.^[4] Phyllo for domestic use is widely available from supermarkets, fresh or frozen.

Phyllo should not be confused with puff pastry, which like phyllo has multiple layers, but is made with butter or oil between layers. When the layered phyllo preparation is baked or deep-fried it becomes crispy and resembles puff pastry, though their preparation is very different and they are generally not substituted for one another.

Uses

Phyllo can be used in many ways: layered, folded, rolled, or ruffled, with various fillings. Some common varieties are with:

• Cheese: called Peynirli börek in Turkey, Burekas in Israel, Tyropita in Greece and Cyprus, Gibanica in Serbia, standard Banitsa in Bulgaria
• Chicken: called Tavuklu börek in Turkish cuisine, Kotopita in Greek cuisine
• Vegetables: sebzeli börek (spinach, leek, eggplant, courgette etc.) in Turkish cuisine, Chortopita in Greek cuisine (Prasopita when filled with leeks)
• Meat: called Kıymalı börek or Talas böreği (with diced meat and vegetables) in Turkish cuisine, Kreatopita in Greek cuisine, Burek in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and elsewhere
• Nuts and syrup: Baklava, sütlü nuriye, şöbiyet, saray sarma in Turkish cuisine
• Potatoes: called Patatopita in Greek cuisine, Krompiruša in Serbia, Patatnik in Bulgarian cuisine
• Powdered sugar on top
• Spinach and feta cheese: called Ispanaklı börek in Turkish cuisine, Spanakopita in Greek cuisine, Spanachnik in Bulgarian cuisine

Su böreği in Turkish cuisine consisting of boiled dough layers with cheese in between can be described as a salty version of baklava. Some recipes also use an egg yolk glaze on top when baked, to enhance color and crispness. In Western countries, phyllo is popular with South Asian immigrants in making samosas.

Other names

Phyllo is known by a variety of names in ethnic and regional cuisines. Among them in:

• Turkish cuisine pastries prepared with phyllo are called börek
• Egyptian cuisine they are called gollash
• Albanian cuisine they are called byrek
• In Bosnia burek is used only for the pastries with meat and other kinds are called pita
• In Serbian language phyllo is called kore (plural) while the pastries have various names, depending on mode of preparation
• In Bulgaria the dough is called kori za banitsa (pl.) and the generic name for the pastries is banitsa, although there are special names for some specific kinds.

Bibliography

• Perry, Charles. "The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava", in A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (ed. Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994. ISBN 1-86064-603-4.
• Lambraki Mirsini, Akın Engin, Aynı Sofrada İki Ülke, Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı, Istanbul 2003, ISBN 9754584842.

References

External links

• Baking911.com Phyllo dough recipes