SC - filo dough

[Decker, Terry D.]

Linda Peterson wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Diana Haven wrote:
> > I had posted an apple strudel recipe on this list a while ago...and the
> > dough comes out like a phyllo dough.  very nice and buttery.
> >
> > That may be what you are looking for.  Ask Stefan if he has a copy.  He
> 
> Are we all talking about the same stuff here? All the filo dough I've ever
> used, usually for Middle Eastern cooking, comes as a thin sheet of plain
> dough-if you boiled it, it would be a noodle. No butter. Usually you add
> the butter and layer it manually while assembling a dish. What y'all are
> describing sounds more like puff pastry?
> 
> Mirhaxa
>   mirhaxa at morktorn.com

I think the above reference to strudel dough being buttery refers to the
finished product, although some strudel dough has butter knreaded into
it from an early stage. I expect we most of us know the differences
here, but just to be on the safe side, and on the same terms:

Phyllo dough is a paper-thin sheet of cooked pastry, made from flour and
water, which is almost invariably served layered with butter or oil and
rebaked. It's usually factory-made using a machine with heated steel
rollers that press and cook at the same time. Some Asian spring roll
wrappers are made somewhat similarly, by pressing a ball of dough onto a
heated griddle and pulling away the excess, so what sticks to the
griddle cooks as a sheet.

Puff pastry is made in layers, uncooked, then filled (or whatever) and
baked. It's basically laminated like Damascus steel by layering butter
or other fat between layers of dough, folded and rolled out, then folded
again. It is then allowed to rest and chill to relax developed gluten
strands, then the process is repeated as many times as will give the
desired number of layers - anywhere from around 600 to a couple of
thousand, depending on usage, as I recall.

Strudel dough is a single layer, like phyllo, except it is used from its
raw state, usually rolled around a filling, either with butter or the
filling itself separating the layers, depending on whether the filling
is in a lump or spread out on the dough.
  
Adamantius the Arbiter
Østgardr, East
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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