Filo

Filo, phyllo or yufka is a very thin unleavened dough used for making pastries such as baklava and börek. 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 'thin sheet' .

History

Origin

The origin of the practice of stretching raw dough into paper-thin sheets is unclear, with many cultures claiming credit.

Some attribute the origin of filo to the Ancient Greeks; Desserts made with this prototype would include the placenta cake, which historian Speros Vyronis describesit as a "Byzantine favorite" and "the same as Turkish baklava".

Others attribute the origin of filo to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, who developed traditions of thin, layered flatbreads called yufka during the medieval period to suit their nomadic lifestyle, while its paper-thin form is likely to have evolved later in the palace kitchens of Ottoman Istanbul.

Charles Perry argues that nomadic Turkic peoples had an “obsessive interest” in making layered bread, possibly in emulation of the thick oven breads of city people. 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.

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:

Maghrebi malsouka (AKA warqa or brik sheets): Malsouka thicker than filo and is made by cooking a semolina-based dough on a hot pan.
Turkish yufka: Yufka is an unleavened bread cooked on a saj, thicker than filo sheets, and may sometimes differ in ingredients.
Güllaç wafers: Güllaç wafers are made by pouring a starch-based wafer of a hot saj.
In Egyptian Arabic, phyllo is referred to as "Güllaç dough" ().

References

Bibliography

Engin Akın, Mirsini Lambraki, Kosta Sarıoğlu, Aynı Sofrada İki Ülke: Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı, Istanbul 2003,
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.