The ancient art of phyllo :)

For me the past few weeks since I've returned back to Greece has been filled with so much fun. In the past couple weeks I have learned how to make phyllo dough- from scratch! From this I learned to make tiropita (cheese pie). A few days I learned how to make pastrami... never have I thought I would actually learn to cure meat with salt and make a paste that dries the meat out to perfection! Apparently you can make pastrami from any meat availalbe. I would post the pastrami recipe but I only have it in Greek. BUT if any of you are brave enough to try making phyllo it really isn't that difficult (at least not when I tryed with 2 lovely persistent Greek women standing over me perfecting my rolling technique).

For the most perfect phyllo dough ever:
-4 cups flour
-1 cup cold water
-4 teaspoons oil (vegetable i think- or olive)
-1/2 tsp salt

(Yes! This is really all it takes... and a heaping spoonful of gumption!)

Mix these together with your hands to create a large (consistent) ball of dough that isn't too elastic and is mixed well. Form into 10-13 small dough balls and wrap all of them together in seran wrap and stick in fridgerator for 30 min to 1 hour.
Now don't get over zealous and try to work with these dough balls before they've been in the fridge long enough.
Get some extra flour so that you can roll these balls out individually. Traditionally Greeks use a giant wooden cutting board looking area to roll these suckers out. Instead of a standard rolling pin they use long wooden dowels to beat the phyllo into long paper thin pastry perfection...

I'm thinking an American equivalent (if y'all don't happen to have these traditional wooden things in your kitchen) is a small rolling pin and large flat surface to work around. Now- get ready for some serious phyllo action.

Pull out your dough and work with 1 dough ball at a time. Put flour on your flat surface and place dough in middle placing more flour on top. Press the rolling pin into the dough horizontally and then vertically creating an imprinted cross. Put rolling pin in middle and roll out gently but with force. Remember- it's just dough... but its phyllo. The point is to roll it out thin enough so it can crisp up to taste amazing with many layers.

Do this with every dough ball... And from here you can make milopita (apple pita), tiropita (cheese pita), spanatiropita (spinach & cheese pie).... the oppurtunities are endless!
Have fun!

Warning: this can be really time consuming...

I was standing in the cafeteria when Mrs. Soula came up to me and said to me "you will learn phyllo today?" I responded "sure!"
This was around 2.30 pm. I entered her kitchen around 3 pm and around 6.30 my golden tiropita (cheese pita) came out of the oven. My phyllo was freaking perfect. I stood admiring this golden Greek art as 12 older Greek men and women stood around the pan munching on their own slices of my phyllo masterpiece they raved at how perfect my phyllo actually was.
Amist many foreign greek words I managed to translate a few of their vocab as they gushed... "who did this?!?," "American girl," and many different forms of "fantastic phyllo!"

I am pleased to say that when I return home I will be packing a giant long wooden phyllo rolling utensil. When I get back in the US I will most likely be building my own giant wooden cutting board... it's super functional and just plain looks so awesome.