Filo, phyllo or yufka is a very thin Leavening agent dough used for making pastries such as baklava and börek in Turkish cuisine and . Filo-based pastries are made by layering many sheets of filo brushed with oil or butter; the pastry is then baked.
Name and etymology
The name
filo or
phyllo comes from
Greek language φύλλο "thin sheet".
[Alan Davidson (2014). . Oxford: Oxford University Press. . p. 307.] The
Turkish language name for the product is
yufka, and this word has evolved from the Old Turkish word
yuvka, meaning "thin, weak".
[[1] Nişanyan Dictionary "yufka"]
History
The origin of the practice of stretching raw dough into paper-thin sheets is unclear, with many cultures claiming credit.
[Mayer, Caroline E. " Phyllo Facts". Washington Post. 1989.
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived.
Some claim it may be derived from the Greeks;[Hoffman, Susanna. The Olive and the Caper. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. ]
Others claim it originates with the Turks;[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. ] The filo eventually evolved from yufka sometime after the conquest of Constantinople, probably invented by the cooks in the Topkapi Palace.
Preparation
Filo dough is made with flour, water and a small amount of oil.
Homemade filo takes time and skill, requiring progressive rolling and stretching to a single thin and very large sheet. A very big table is used, preferably with a marble top. If the dough is stretched by hand, a long, thin rolling pin is used, with continual flouring between layers to prevent the sheets from sticking to one another.
In modern times, mechanical rollers are also used. Prior to World War I, households in Istanbul typically had two filo makers to prepare razor thin sheets for baklava, and the relatively thicker sheets used for
börek. Fresh and frozen versions are prepared for commercial markets.
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Use
When using filo to make pastries, the thin layers are made by first rolling out the sheets of dough to the final thickness, then brushing them with oil, or melted butter for some desserts, and stacking them. This contrasts with puff pastry and croissant doughs, where the layers are stacked into a thick layer of dough, then folded and rolled out multiple times to produce a laminated dough containing thin layers of dough and fat.
Filo can be used in many ways: layered, folded, rolled, or ruffled, with various fillings.
List of filo-based pastries
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Baklava – dessert made with layers of filo, chopped nuts, and syrup or honey.
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Banitsa – A Bulgarian dish consisting of eggs, cheese and filo baked in the oven.
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Börek – A savory filo pie.
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Bougatsa – A type of Greek breakfast pastry.
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Bülbül yuvası – A Middle eastern dessert with pistachios and syrup.
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Bundevara – A Serbian sweet pie filled with pumpkin.
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Flia – An Albanian dish consisting of multiple crêpe-like layers brushed with cream and served with sour cream.
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Galaktoboureko – A dessert consisting of filo and muhallebi.
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Gibanica – A Balkan dish made from filo, white cheese, and eggs.
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Pastizz – A savory pastry from Malta filled with ricotta or mushy peas.
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Savory spinach pie – A Balkans' spinach pie.
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Tiropita – A Greek dish similar to Börek, filled with a cheese-egg mixture.
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Zelnik – A savory pie from the Balkans.
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Jabukovača – Bosnian pastry made of filo dough stuffed with apples.
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Pastilla - Moroccan pie made of thin Warqa dough stuffed with either chicken, seafood or lamb.
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Warbat - Jordanian and Syrian dessert consisting of layers of dough and semolina custard.
Comparison to similar pastries
There are several similar foods similar to filo that are frequently confused with filo:[
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Maghrebi malsouka (AKA warqa or brik sheets): Malsouka thicker than filo and is made by cooking a semolina-based dough on a hot pan.
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Turkish yufka: Yufka is an unleavened bread cooken on a saj, thicker than filo sheets, and may sometimes differ in ingredients.
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Güllaç wafers: Güllaç wafers are made by pouring a starch-based wafer of a hot tava.
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See also
Bibliography
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Engin Akın, Mirsini Lambraki, Kosta Sarıoğlu, Aynı Sofrada İki Ülke: Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı, Istanbul 2003,
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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.
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External links
