Working with Phyllo and Kataifi
Both doughs dry out the moment they hit the air. Success is found in keeping your workspace humidified or your work moving fast, and never being stingy with the fat.
Manage the air exposure
Keep a damp kitchen towel over your stack of phyllo at all times. If the dough snaps when you try to fold it, it has dried out too much to save.
- pastry brush
- damp kitchen towels
- sharp serrated knife
- baking sheet
What goes in.
- 1 lbphyllo dough, thawed
- 1 lbkataifi dough, thawed
- 1.5 cupsclarified butter or ghee, melted
The importance of saturation
Clarified butter is essential because milk solids burn during the long bake. Brush until the phyllo looks translucent or until the kataifi strands look glossy, not white.
The method.
Prep the kataifi
Pull the kataifi strands apart with your fingers until they resemble loose hay. Toss them in a bowl with half your melted butter, ensuring every thread is coated before shaping.
Layer the phyllo
Lay one sheet on your board and brush lightly with butter. Place another sheet directly on top and repeat. Do not try to brush every single layer in a thick stack; do it in groups of two or three.
Maintain tension
When rolling phyllo or bundling kataifi, keep the structure firm. If the roll is loose, the final product will collapse into a soggy center rather than holding its crisp shape.
The cut
Always score your phyllo pastries with a serrated knife before baking. If you wait until they are cooked, the delicate crust will shatter into dust.
Other turns to take.
Bird's Nests
Twist small bundles of buttered kataifi into muffin tin cups, leaving a depression in the center for nuts or thickened cream.
Phyllo Triangles
Fold buttered strips of phyllo over a spoonful of filling in a repeating flag-folding motion until you reach the end of the strip.
When it doesn't go to plan.
Use a squeeze bottle for the melted butter to distribute it evenly across large sheets of phyllo without tearing the dough with your brush bristles.
If you are working in a dry room, keep your phyllo sheets inside their plastic packaging and pull them out one by one as needed.
Bake until deep golden brown; these doughs often look brown before they are truly crisp.
The ones that keep coming up.
Can I use regular butter instead of clarified butter?
The milk solids in regular butter will brown too quickly and may taste bitter over the long bake time required to crisp the center of the pastry.
How do I fix torn phyllo?
Patch it. Brush a small piece of scrap dough with butter and press it over the tear; it will act like a bandage and vanish once baked.
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