Fillo ya Pita
(Phyllo Pastry)
This is one of the most well known aspects of Greek cuisine in the United States but
unfortunately it is usually known in the form of frozen dough. As with most things culinary freshly made phyllo dough is superior to store bought and will yield great results when making other foods such as Spanakopitta. The key to making the phyllo at home is in rolling it out, it may take some practice but good quality phyllo dough is with-in reach
of all who try. This recipe is for a phyllo dough to be used right away, in Greece it is common for phyllo to be made using yeast and allowing the dough to ferment and obtain
a more complex character and ability to leaven. This recipe is done using a long thin
rolling pin; most kitchens will not have the correct rolling pin and may need to cut the dough into smaller or thinner pieces to be able to make the dough on a shorter rolling pin.
Traditional rolling pin is 3 feet 4 inches long and 1 inch in diameter
Yield – 1.5 lbs Fresh Phyllo Dough
Mixing Method – Straight Dough Method
Rolling Method – Rolling by wrapping on Rolling Pin
Ingredients:
For Making the Dough
1 tbsp White Wine Vinegar
1.25 ounces Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp Salt
8 ounces or as needed Water For Makeup of the Dough
4 ounces or as needed Cornstarch
Procedure:
For Making the Dough
1. Combine the bread flour, white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and water in a mixing
bowl with a dough hook attachment and mix to form a dough.
2. Once the dough has formed, adjust the liquid or flour (this will depend on specific
qualities of the flour you are using) until the dough is not sticking to the bowl but
is a soft almost sticky dough (if needing to add either flour or water do so in small
increments as it is easy to add too much)
3. Once the dough is the right consistency continue to mix it with the dough hook
attachment until the dough is elastic and can be stretched without it tearing (use
the “window” method of testing the dough, should be able to stretch it so thin you
can see light through it without it tearing)
4. Once the dough is mixed out properly remove the bowl from the machine and
cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or remove the dough from the bowl and cover
in plastic wrap) and set aside for an hour to allow the dough to rest.
For Make-up of the Dough
1. Once the dough has rested remove it from the refrigerator and divide it into two
pieces. 2. Using a rolling pin (do not choice a heavy rolling pin as this will cause the dough
to lose the layers you are trying to develop) roll out the first piece of dough on a
bench coated with some of the cornstarch until it is about ¼ of an inch thick
3. Dust the piece of rolled out dough with the cornstarch and then gently wrap the
dough around the rolling pin by holding one end of the dough on the pin and
rolling the pin away from your self until the dough has wrapped around the rolling
pin and reached the original place you were holding the dough from. Continue to
roll the dough around itself on the rolling pin until all of the dough is wrapped
around the pin.
4. Gently roll the dough thinner by pressing lightly on the rolling pin while rolling
and with your hands pushing the dough from the center of the rolling pin toward
the edges. This will make the sheets progressively thinner as you do so
(depending on the size of the rolling pin you are using you may have to unroll the
dough, cut it in half lengthwise and then roll up each half individually and
continue rolling it to get it thin enough on a smaller rolling pin)
5. Once the dough has been rolled thin in the manner described in steps 3 & 4
remove it by unrolling the dough out onto the bench again and then re-roll the
dough around the rolling pin from the direction that it was stretched in (again it
may need to be cut to accommodate the larger piece of dough when you do this)
thus you will be rolling it out lengthwise 90 degrees from how you did it the last
time and then stretching the dough into a larger and thinner square from where
you had started before step 3. 6. Repeat steps 2-5 with the second piece of dough that had the original piece had
been cut into.
7. These fresh phyllo sheets are ready to be used as soon as they have been rolled
very thin and they should be kept covered until they are used to prevent drying.