What can be done from thin Greek dough. Love flour products? What to cook with phyllo dough

Strudel with spinach and suluguni cheese I made from ready-made filo dough. Such a roll should be kept in the oven about half as much as if you baked it from a draft dough. So that the thin crust is a little softer and does not crumble when

chapter: Vertuta

Banitsa is a national Bulgarian dish. It is made from thinly rolled dough with various fillings. To simplify the recipe, instead of homemade thinly rolled cakes, you can use ready-made cakes for banitsa or filo dough.

chapter: Banitsa

Pie with spinach and feta based on spanakopita. The finished pie can be served hot or cold. Instead of filo, you can take ready-made puff pastry or cook it yourself, for example, pseudo puff pastry with vinegar.

chapter: Greek cuisine

Pastilla with chicken (Chicken bastilla (pastilla)) or Moroccan chicken and almond pie is made from filo dough. With these thinnest sheets of dough, three fillings are idle at once - egg and onion, meat and nut. The result is a pie

chapter: Chicken pies

Baklava (or baklava) is a pie with nuts and sweet syrup, widespread in the cuisines of eastern peoples. For the filling, walnuts, pistachios, hazelnuts are suitable. In some countries, the filling for baklava is made from cottage cheese.

chapter: Baklava

For tarts, ready-made puff pastry or filo dough is suitable. Closely cut into small squares, baked until cooked, and topped with a filling of fatty sour cream with caviar and thin slices of salmon. It turns out tender and tasty, unusually elegant and

chapter: Tartinki

For this strudel, ready-made sheets of filo dough are enough. The dough is smeared with melted butter and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. The filling is prepared from a mixture of feta and ricotta with the addition of finely chopped dill and green onions. Here's a savory strudel

chapter: Strudels

Recipe for banitsa from filo dough with feta cheese. Everything is described in great detail: what to make, how to make, what kind of baking dish to use, at what temperature to bake. And even with what it is better to eat a banitsa. It remains only to learn how to make filo dough, if n

chapter: Bulgarian cuisine

Phyllo dough pies June 10th, 2013

I finally got around to filo pastry. It is truly magical and it is difficult to compare it with anything. There are two types of pies with meat and cheese filling.

Simple to impossibility, but beautiful and expensive!

Filo - unleavened, very thin, stretched dough, sold in layers of 10 layers. Used in Mediterranean cuisine. The Greek word Phyllon means "leaf". Layers of dough can be as thin as paper or a few millimeters thick.

Phyllo dough is widely used in Greek and Turkish cuisines in both sweet and savory dishes. In Turkish cuisine, pastries made from this dough are called borek or boregi, in Albanian cuisine - byrek, and in Austrian-German-Hungarian cuisine, the dough is called blatterteig (strudel is baked from it). Paper-thin filo sheets contain less fat than all other types of dough. While cooking, each layer is brushed with melted butter or olive oil to achieve a crunchy result.
Phyllo dough can be purchased frozen or chilled. The size of the sheets varies by manufacturer, but for most recipes they can be cut or folded to fit your mold. I usually order it online.

So, we need:
Phyllo dough - one package;
Melted butter.

1. for cheese filling:
Feta cheese or bryndza cheese (I also like feta cheese, but it is very salty);
Favorite greens (in the classic recipe, scalded spinach is added);
Eggs - 2 pcs.

2. for meat stuffing:
Minced meat fried with onions;
Boiled or baked potatoes;
A little green.

Mix minced meat with potatoes and herbs.
Mix cheese with herbs and eggs.
Next, grease the form with melted butter and carefully lay out the filo dough, cut the ends with scissors.
We put the filling in the molds and close the dough on top.

We send it to the oven preheated to 180 degrees, for about 40 minutes. Until a beautiful golden color.

We take out our beauty, and here it is already at will: it can be hot, or you can cool it, it’s still very tasty.

Cheese turns out especially tasty!

Surprisingly simple but effective! And most importantly, fast! And do not mess with the test, I know that not everyone likes it.
Now I want to make different baskets with custard and fill them with berries, mint, ice cream ...
Bon appetit!

Those who have been to Greek taverns must have been amazed at how airy sweet pastries and delicate dough rolls with different fillings are. It seems that puff products are also baked here, but for some reason they do not possess such subtlety, airiness and unusual taste. And the whole secret is that special Greek dough is used for cooking. It is so thin that it was even named Philo (translated from Greek means "leaf"). It is quite easy to prepare and the dishes are delicious! Therefore, the material is devoted to this culinary feature of Mediterranean cuisine. We will learn everything about filo dough: what it is, how it is prepared and in what dishes it can be used. Let's get started!

The Greeks have many culinary features, and one of them is the Greek Philo dough. At home, he is called φύλλο, which is written in Latin transcription as Filo or Phyllo. Sometimes in Cyrillic they use the spelling with two l: Phyllo. Under such names, this Greek product is known throughout the world.

So what is filo dough and what is it used for? The answers are simple. Phyllo (Phyllo) - unleavened stretched dough, which is rolled out into the thinnest layers less than 1 mm wide. It is a popular culinary ingredient in the cuisine of the Balkan countries, but it is called differently in each region. In Turkey it is called Yufka", in Egypt " Gollach", in Serbia and Montenegro " Core».

Filo dough is used to make flour products: pies, pies, "envelopes", rolls and cakes. Moreover, the dish does not have to be sweet: seafood, as well as vegetable and meat fillings are added to the dough rolls, thus obtaining delicious snacks. So, if you saw puff pastry in the menu of the tavern, Filo dough is probably present in its composition.

Dishes from Filla acquire a ruddy color, an appetizing crunch and a unique taste. The Filo dough itself is low in calories, because. it is fresh and contains a minimum amount of fat in the composition. But due to the fact that each layer is soaked with olive or sunflower oil, the calories of Filo dough increase to 441 units per 100 grams of product. In general, for a standard serving of a dish, this is relatively little.

You can create a Mediterranean culinary masterpiece both from purchased Phyllo and from cooked ones yourself. We will tell you in detail about how to cook filo dough at home a little later. As for ready-made layers, then buy Filo dough in large supermarkets: the price for 500 grams ranges from 100-150 rubles. The product is often sold frozen, therefore, before use, it is required to bring it to full defrosting so that the layers become elastic again.

Filo dough composition

So, we learned what filo dough is, now let's look at how to cook it. But before we give a detailed recipe for filo dough for cooking at home, we will briefly describe its composition. So that those who want to purchase a finished product in a store, focusing on the data presented, choose high-quality products.

So, Phyllo is a yeast-free dough, which includes:

• Flour with a high percentage of gluten (gluten);
• Water;
• Salt;
• Vinegar.

It is also allowed to use chicken egg, vegetable oil and starch in cooking.

These are the ingredients that go into filo dough. As you can see, the composition of Phyllo is very simple, but at the same time rich in vitamins. There are vitamins A, E, PP, D and several B vitamins at once. This complex of useful substances helps to improve the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, normalize peristalsis and increase body tone. Of course, all this is valid provided that the product does not contain harmful concentrates and additives E. Therefore, when purchasing dough in a store, carefully read the composition on the label.

And to be 100% sure of the usefulness of the dish, it is better to cook it yourself. The recipe for how to make filo dough at home is not that complicated. Especially if you know the little tricks and nuances of cooking. So, let's reveal all the secrets.

How to make your own phyllo dough - step by step recipe

Filo pastry looks attractive, crunches appetizingly and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. Such a delicacy is tempting to try, even if you know about Greece only by hearsay and beautiful pictures on the Internet. Well, traveling abroad is not available to everyone, but it is quite possible to get acquainted with world cuisine at home. For example, make your own phyllo dough pie or a crispy roll with vegetable filling.

Such sweets are easy and simple to make, the main thing is to know how to properly prepare filo dough at home. We will talk about this wisdom in detail.

Ingredients

Above, we have already outlined the classic composition of the Filo dough with a list of the main components, tips on where to buy Filo dough and what to look for. And they also mentioned there that there are different variations of kneading Greek dough. Therefore, here we will move away from the classics, designed for industrial production, and present the most optimal recipe for making Filo dough at home.

So, first of all, stock up on the following ingredients:

• Wheat flour - 3 tbsp.;
• Boiled water - 1 tbsp.;
• Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l.;
• Vinegar 9% - 1 tsp;
• Egg yolks - 3 pcs.;
• Salt - 0.5 tsp

This set of products is designed for 12 servings, and the total cooking time will take 2.5 hours. As you can see, the composition is nothing supernatural - everything can be found in the store closest to the house. Well, if you have everything ready, then let's start making filo dough!

Cooking steps

Since the Greek dough is extremely thin (layer less than 1 mm), it is very important to knead the right concentration so that subsequently the sheets do not tear, bubble or burst. For the first time, this is always difficult, so for beginners, we offer a step-by-step recipe for phyllo dough. Over time, you will fill your hand, and jewelry work with the thinnest sheets will become a common thing.

So, let's take a look at how to cook Greek filo pastry step by step.

1. Pour warm boiled water into a bowl and add salt to it. Mix thoroughly so that the salt dissolves to the last grain. The homogeneity of the mass is very important, because. any lump can subsequently tear the sheet.
2. Add vinegar and egg yolks to salted water. Mix again until smooth.
3. Take a separate deep bowl and sift the flour.
4. In the prepared flour, make a small depression and slowly pour in the prepared mixture of water, vinegar and egg yolks. Constantly stir the dough with a spoon.
5. Add vegetable oil to the prepared mixture and continue to stir. When the dough hardens so much that the spoon will turn with difficulty, proceed to kneading with your hands.
6. Finally, we get a soft dough, which must be beaten for 2-3 minutes, i.e. about 50-60 times. Thanks to this procedure, Phyllo receives density and elasticity.
7. We wrap a well-beaten dough in cling film or a bag, and leave it to cool at room temperature for 60 minutes.

During this time, it is necessary to prepare a waffle or linen towel, parchment paper and a skipping rope. The towel should be lightly moistened and sprinkled with flour so that the dough does not stick to the surface.

1. Now it's time for the fine rolling. We iron the dough on the prepared fabric, and cut into small pieces. We take one part and begin to roll out ( while working with 1 slice, cover the rest with a film or bag so that the dough does not wind).
2. Having received a thin layer, we take it in our hands and begin to gently stretch by hand until the layer begins to shine through. If the kneading was correct, the dough will be tender and pliable, and the sheet will easily stretch.
3. Trim the edges and lay out the layer on the parchment. To prevent the dough from drying out, cover it with a damp towel.
4. Roll out all the remaining pieces in the same way. We lay the finished leaves with parchment and collect in a pile. Don't forget to cover it with a damp towel.
5. At the end of the process, we turn the entire stack into a roll. If you need to cook after 2-3 hours, then again cover with a towel. If the dough is prepared for future use, then directly bundle it and freeze it. The product is ready!

By the way, we note that if you want to make lean Filo dough, then you can reduce the calorie content by removing eggs from the recipe. The rest of the cooking technology is the same.

With cooked Phyllo, you can make any dough products: pies, puff pastries, baskets, envelopes and original snacks. Here are some delicious recipes right now!

What can be prepared from filo dough - a few recipes

So, we are great fellows and managed to make real Greek dough at home. Now let's think about what to cook from filo dough at home. We offer to try a couple of main dishes and some appetizers.

Filo pastry

Ready-made Greek filo dough is great for making Austrian strudel. The product is crispy, appetizing and literally melts in your mouth. And the combination of apple juice with a creamy-sugar flavor of the dough leaves a delicate aftertaste. Consider the recipe!

Servings - 8, preparation time - 1.5 hours
Ingredients
Phyllo	Apples	Raisin*	Cookie	Butter	Powdered sugar
5-6 sheets	6 pieces, medium-sized, sweet and sour	150-200 gr.	100 gr., with ordinary taste	1 pack	1 st. l.
*It is better to pre-soak raisins in cold water and leave to settle overnight.
Cooking technology
1. Apples should be washed, peeled and core cut. Then chop into thin slices. Place in a deep bowl. 2. Using a blender, grind the cookies to small crumbs. 3. Add infused raisins and crushed biscuits to apples. Mix everything. If the apples are too sweet, you can add some lemon juice. 4. Put a sheet of dough on a table or cloth sprinkled with flour and brush it with melted butter. Take the next layer of Filo and cover the previous one with it, while shifting the second layer 2-3 cm below the first, grease with oil. Repeat the steps with all sheets, not forgetting to lubricate them. 5. Put the filling on the dough, wrap it in a roll and brush with oil again. Send to the oven, heated to 190 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Crispy homemade phyllo dough strudel is ready! It remains to sprinkle it with powdered sugar and serve.

You can also make a quick and tasty filo pie with chicken and rice. It takes only 1 hour to prepare this simple dish. Here is the prescription.

How to make Chicken Phyllo Dough Pie
Ingredients
Dough	Chicken fillet	Rice	Cheese	fill	Spices
8 sheets	600 gr.	200 gr.	Feta - 100 gr. Hard cheese - 100 gr. Parmesan - 50 gr.	Chicken broth - 150 ml. Cream - 200 ml. Eggs - 2 pcs.	Parsley - 1 tbsp. Green onions - 1 tbsp. Sweet paprika - 1 tbsp Salt, pepper to taste.
Cooking
1. Boil and cut the chicken, leave the broth. Blanch rice. Mash the feta with a fork, finely grate the hard cheese. Put all the ingredients in a deep plate, add spices, mix thoroughly. 2. Place baking paper on a baking sheet. Lay out sheets of dough 2 pcs. cross to cross, smearing each layer with oil. 3. Put the filling in the center of the dough. Grate the Parmesan and sprinkle liberally around the edges of the pastry. Twist the edges with a roller, wrapping cheese in them ( turn up to the filling). You will get an open cake with tucked edges. 4. Gently pour the filling with broth and cream. Proportions should be carefully observed so that the filling does not turn out to be too liquid. 5. Break 2 eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork. Pour the filling with the egg mixture and put the cake in the oven for 30 minutes (180 degrees). Bake until golden brown. The dish is ready!

As you can see, with unleavened Filo, you get very tasty sweet and savory pastries. Let's see how the snacks go.

Filo dough toppings

With Greek dough, not only pies and pastries are prepared, but also other products. For example, delicious and original snacks, which, thanks to their beautiful design, are perfect for the festive table.

The basis for the preparation of snacks is any form made from Phyllo. These can be rolls, “roses”, “bird nests”, etc. Depending on the purpose, phyllo sheets are twisted, cut into layers or thin straws. Thus, in snacks, Greek dough is used not only for taste, but also for a beautiful presentation of food.

As for the filling, everything here also depends on the imagination of the hostess. On the net you can find many recipes for Filo dough snacks with cottage cheese, cheese, vegetables, seafood, poultry, etc. There are even whole appetizer salads with Phyllo. Here is one of the most popular recipes.

Ingredients
Dough	Butter	Chees Feta	Cottage cheese	Egg
500 gr.	1 pack	200 gr.	200 gr.	1 PC.
We also need a narrow wooden stick: about 40 cm long and 0.5 - 1 cm in diameter.
Cooking
1. Knead Feta in a deep bowl, add cottage cheese to it and pour over the egg. Mix until a homogeneous mass is obtained. 2. We take a sheet of dough, spread it with the smaller side towards us. Lubricate with oil. 3. We roll the sheet onto a stick, at the end leaving a layer 2-3 cm wide. 4. We collect the dough rolled onto a stick with our hands into an accordion. We press a little so that the structure holds its shape. We remove the stick. 5. Now we connect the ends of our "tube". In the middle, where the unrolled layer remained, we make neat folds and slightly crush so that there are no holes. 6. We spread the prepared filling in the center of the resulting “nest”. Repeat the process with the remaining ingredients. We send the prepared cheesecakes to the oven preheated to 180 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. The treat is ready to eat!

A dish prepared according to the above recipe will amaze guests with both its aesthetics and wonderful taste. Do not forget to experiment with the filling, replacing cheese and cottage cheese, for example, with meat, potatoes, vegetables, etc. You can also replace the Filo dough, if it is suddenly not at hand, with a yeast-free puff pastry. But remember that in this case, the calorie content of the dish will increase significantly.

In contact with

Classmates

Phyllo is one of the most popular foods used in traditional Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Middle Eastern cuisines. It is great for preparing both sweet dishes and spicy delicacies. Although the Greeks like to credit themselves with the authorship of many culinary inventions, they admit that the recipe for filo dough was brought to them from Persia. However, there is no doubt that only in the homeland of Socrates is the full potential of the flatbread made from flour, water and olive oil enriched with a pinch of salt.

A delicacy from the shores of the Mediterranean

For many centuries, dishes made from this dough were the basis of the Greek diet. It especially helped out poor families who ate by stuffing phyllo with leftovers from other dishes. Today, tasty and fragrant products under the general name "pitas" are one of the main culinary attractions of the Mediterranean countries, especially Greece and Turkey. You can buy them at any local eatery.

The basis of these dishes is still filo, although fewer and fewer housewives make it themselves. And many years ago, every woman knew that the dough needed to be rolled out into a large layer - so thin that it was necessary to immediately cover it so that it would not dry out. During work, it was impossible to have any rings or bracelets on the hands that would threaten the destruction of the delicate structure. Modern Greek and Turkish women, instead of wasting time on the laborious preparation of sheet dough, are increasingly buying ready-made - fresh or frozen - filo. It is also available in some of our stores.

Attention, preservatives!

As mentioned, phyllo dough should be made with wheat flour, water, a little olive oil, a pinch of salt, and perhaps a few drops of vinegar or raki, an anise-flavored Turkish vodka. The composition of the finished dough sold in stores, as a rule, includes many more components. These are, in particular, corn starch, emulsifiers (soy lecithin), preservatives (potassium sorbate), and acidity regulators (potassium citrate, sodium dioctane). The most controversial is potassium sorbate, which can sometimes cause allergic reactions.

Working with filo

Making your own filo is a very difficult task. Therefore, it makes sense to use the finished product. However, it is worth choosing the dough more carefully, giving preference to compositions with the least number of components, especially various “amplifiers”.

If it is frozen, it must be thawed before cooking, but as delicately as possible, for example, by leaving it overnight in the refrigerator. You need to get it out of there an hour before use. Otherwise, it will dry out quickly and be easier to tear.

After defrosting, spread the dough on a clean surface and straighten it. Each sheet is lightly greased with fat, preferably melted butter or olive oil. Remember that several layers of filo are used for cooking.

How to use filo?

Phyllo is an essential component of baklava, a delicious dessert common in traditional Turkish, Armenian, Greek and Balkan cuisines. Pieces of dough are layered with chopped nuts (walnuts or almonds) mixed with honey. All this is fried and cut into diamonds, triangles or squares, and then poured over with a glaze or syrup made from water, sugar and lemon juice. At the end of the product, sprinkle with chopped pistachios.

How else can you use filo? This dough is neutral in taste, so you can use it for both sweet and savory dishes. Filo is suitable for deep frying and baking in the oven. It has proven itself in various strudels, for example, apple strudel (we fill it with apples fried with sugar, cinnamon, nuts, raisins and lemon juice) or poppy seeds.

The thin dough is also a great base for a variety of pies (called pita in Greece). Pittas are often stuffed with feta cheese and herbs. Single sheets are cut into squares, stuffing is placed in the middle and glued on the sides with a beaten egg. At the end of cooking, pierce the dough so that the resulting steam has an outlet, otherwise the products will burst. The filling of such snacks depends on ingenuity. We can fill them with goat cheese and figs, spinach, minced meat or shrimp rice. In Turkey, börek is considered a favorite delicacy of many - filo baskets are filled with a filling of boiled and chopped potatoes, feta (or yellow) cheese, garlic, onions and parsley.

The site "Magic Food" collects for you recipes for Greek filo pastry pies with step by step photos. Our collection is constantly growing.

I have prepared for you a Greek thin filo pastry made at home, and see the recipe with step-by-step photos below. The name of this test is beautiful, but it is thin and tender. You can make puff pastries, pies, baklava and other puff products from this.

But first you need to knead it, and here you need to know a few secrets of making filo dough, which I would like to tell you about. If you do not follow the basic rules, then the dough will not work out, and the baked goods will not be so tasty. So read and remember!

Extract test secrets

1. In production, phyllo dough is intensively kneaded by a machine that knocks out and mixes in all directions for about 10 minutes. At home, it will take about 20 minutes to intensively knead with your hands. During this time, the mass will become elastic and viscous. It will be easy to work with this and the layers of the finished product will turn out to be translucent.
   If you have a bread maker in your kitchen, then the Dough Kneading program can help you a lot. Just 10 minutes of this technique and everything will be ready. Note, no problems and physical labor.
2. Warm water is used to knead the dough. Not at room temperature, but warm water that needs to be warmed up. Otherwise, nothing will work (!).
3. The finished filo should be sent to the refrigerator for 1 hour. Moreover, it should be the coldest place near the freezer. Only 1 hour it will lie down and you can work with it.
4. Experience. In order to stretch the dough to the thickness of tissue paper, experience is needed. From the first time, not everyone succeeds, but it’s worth trying, since filo pastries are excellent.

For cooking, you need the simplest and most affordable products that are available in any kitchen.

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 240 ml warm water
• 6 tbsp vegetable oil
• 0.5 tsp salt
• about 3 cups flour
• extra vegetable oil for stretching

How to make phyllo dough - step by step recipe with photo

1. First you need to decide who will make the dough: you or the bread machine. I have this assistant in the kitchen, so I will entrust the most difficult work to her. If you don't have a bread maker, knead well by hand, but twice as long as the machine does. We mix the egg, salt, warm water 50 degrees and warm vegetable oil. We fall asleep wheat flour.
2. Now we knead the dough on the “Dough kneading” program for 10 minutes until we get a bun. If we work with pens, then you need to spend 20 minutes knocking the dough on the table and kneading intensively.
3. We wrap the dough in a bag and send it to the refrigerator under the freezer. We leave it there for 1 hour to rest well.
4. Next, divide the bun into pieces and roll out one of them with a rolling pin.
5. Then we grease a thin cake with vegetable oil and stretch it in our hands until the dough becomes very thin and transparent. If you can read a book through it, then you did everything right. Ready-made stretch dough can be frozen by rolling it up with baking paper, or you can immediately start cooking something out of it. I like the second option.

Phyllo dough - video