Filo,phyllo oryufka is a very thinunleaveneddough used for makingpastries such asbaklava andbörek inTurkish andBalkan cuisines. Filo-based pastries are made by layering many sheets of filo brushed with oil or butter; the pastry is then baked.
The namefilo orphyllo comes fromGreekφύλλο "thin sheet".[1][2] TheTurkish name for the product isyufka, and this word has evolved from the Old Turkish wordyuvka, meaning "thin, weak".[3]
The origin of the practice of stretching raw dough into paper-thin sheets is unclear, with many cultures claiming credit.[4]
Some claim it may be derived from the Greeks;[4] Homer'sOdyssey, written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.[4] In the fifth century BC,Philoxenos states in his poem "Dinner" that, in the final drinking course of a meal, hosts would prepare and serve cheesecake made with milk and honey that was baked into a pie.[5]
Others claim it originates with the Turks;[2][4] the 11th-centuryDīwān Lughāt al-Turk byMahmud Kashgari records the meaning ofyurgha, an archaic term foryufka, as "pleated or folded bread". Filo is documented in theTopkapı Palace in theOttoman period.[6] The filo eventually evolved from yufka sometime after theconquest of Constantinople, probably invented by the cooks in the Topkapi Palace.[7]
Filo dough is made with flour, water and a small amount of oil.[8] 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.[9] In modern times, mechanical rollers are also used. Prior toWorld War I, households in Istanbul typically had two filo makers to prepare razor thin sheets for baklava, and the relatively thicker sheets used forbörek. Fresh and frozen versions are prepared for commercial markets.[9]
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 withpuff pastry andcroissant doughs, where the layers are stacked into a thick layer of dough, then folded and rolled out multiple times to produce alaminated dough containing thin layers of dough and fat.[citation needed]
Filo can be used in many ways: layered, folded, rolled, or ruffled, with various fillings.
^Hoffman, Susanna.The Olive and the Caper. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.ISBN9781563058486
^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.ISBN1-86064-603-4
Engin Akın, Mirsini Lambraki, Kosta Sarıoğlu,Aynı Sofrada İki Ülke: Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı, Istanbul 2003,ISBN975-458-484-2
Perry, Charles. "The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava", inA Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (ed.Sami Zubaida,Richard Tapper), 1994.ISBN1-86064-603-4
The dictionary definition offilo at Wiktionary
Media related toPhyllo at Wikimedia Commons
Phyllo dough at the Wikibooks Cookbook subproject