Phyllo dough, also known as philo dough

This dough, famous since the ancient times, was the base of many desserts that women patiently prepared.
It first originated in the Middle East, and it stood out because of the wide combination of dried fruits that goes together with this dough.
Arabs, Hebrews and Armenians are some of those that use this dough.
It is also used to prepare meals.
It is now a pleasure for us to release its recipe with all the details that make it so great.

INGREDIENTS
½kg flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 egg white
1 tablespoon alcohol Vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
Warm water as needed
Cornstarch
Clarified butter

PREPARATION
It is a simple dough recipe which is characterized by its kneading; it must be very thin and almost see through.

To facilitate the kneading process it is required to use plenty of cornstarch. Little balls of dough are placed one on top of the other and in between them plenty of cornstarch.

This procedure allows kneading three balls at the same time, facilitating the labor.

The flour and the salt are mixed together in a bowl. A hole is done in the center of the mixture and the olive oil, the egg white and the vinegar are added.

The mixture is combined with warm water until it reaches the consistency of dough. Its texture has to be adequate for easy kneading.
Once it is finished and the texture is obtained, it is kneaded until it is ready and homogeneous.

It is then divided into balls of approximately 50 to 60 gr. each. The balls are left to rest for 30 minutes in a warm place covered with a clean cloth.

After the rest period is over, the balls are lightly pressed against the cornstarch. Then, the three balls are put one on top of the other using plenty of cornstarch to separate them.

The kneading process begins and the three balls are kneaded together until the dough is paper-thin like, almost transparent.

The purpose of the cornstarch in between layers is to avoid for the individual doughs to stick together while they are being kneaded and therefore, obtaining three individual layers of dough as the final result.

With this system, once the desired thickness is achieved, three doughs will be obtained simultaneously.

The texture of this dough also allows kneading the edges by hand if additional thinning is needed. To do so, it is placed in the working table and the edges are kneaded by hand.

This dough is always used in layers (the number of layers depends on the recipe) and in between layers clarified butter is always brushed in.

This dough can also be frozen by applying plenty of cornstarch to each layer. The dough is placed on baking paper and it is rolled together with plastic food wrap. It can be preserved frozen for a long period of time. It can be thawed by placing it in the lower part of the refrigerator until it reaches the perfect point to be kneaded.

It has an important advantage which is the fact that it does not matter if the layers break while they are being kneaded since they can be reattached without any problems.

It is baked the same way you bake puff paste; at high temperature for 10 minutes and then low temperature until it is ready.