if you like Greek food then you've
probably tasted baklava it's made with a
paper thin flaky pastry called felo the
Greek word for leaf it's a difficult
mixture to perfect so luckily it's one
of those food stuffs that lends itself
perfectly to being frozen from ready
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made felo pastry can be made by hand or
by Machine either way it starts with the
same pastry recipe
the proportions are roughly 40% water
and 60% flour two types of wheat flour
are used high protein flour to make the
pastry strong and flexible and low
protein flour to make its texture smooth
sorbate a preservative is also
used after about 15 minutes of mixing a
section is cut off and fed into a
machine called the divider which
transforms it into a cind rcal
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wad workers hand roll the wad into a
rough Bowl then feed it two or three
times through a machine that Kneads the
mixture into a rounder harder bowl with
no air bubbles trapped
inside then a machine called the sheeter
flattens the ball into what looks like
pizza dough workers stack about 30
sheets with craft paper in between to
absorb some of the mo
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moisture next is the key step called
opening the pastry first a large cotton
cloth is laid over the work surface it
must be 100% cotton to absorb the
moisture otherwise the mixture would
stick together they take a sheet of
dough and begin stretching it by hand
until it's approximately 2 and 1/2 M
squar even though the pastry is
stretched thin it doesn't t hair this is
partly due to its protein content and
partly the skill of the
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worker the process is repeated with all
30 sheets stacking them one on top of
the
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other then they take a plank of wood
wood called a sanida in Greek and roll
the pastry sheets onto it one by one
removing the cloths from in
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between they sprinkle corn starch onto
the pastry just enough to prevent
sticking however too much cornstarch
would burn the
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pastry now they move the Cena to another
table and cut along one side of the
pastry they remove the wood and open the
sheets
flat then they cut rectangles measuring
33x 43 cm standard felo
size each sheet of felo pastry is about
as thin as a sheet of tissue paper but
it's strong and flexible enough not to
tear when a baker works with
it machine-made felo pastry is a much
faster method used primarily for
mass-produced frozen food items an
automated machine called the stretcher
transforms a big wad of pastry into a
thin flat sheet applying just the right
amount of
cornstarch a continuous air current
coming from underneath creates an air
bubble the height of the bubble tells
the workers whether the pastry is the
right
consistency the pastry dries under
infrared lamps this step is NE necessary
because this method doesn't use craft
paper and cotton cloths to absorb the
excess
moisture the dried sheets of pastry
rolls onto a
spool workers cut along the sides to
release the pastry and lay it flat using
a template they cut the standard size
rectangle yielding about 800 sheets of
felo pastry they roll about 20 sheets
together at a time and wrap them in
plastic then they Vacuum Pack and heat
seal the
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package felo pastry stays fresh for 6
weeks in the refrigerator and 6 months
in the freezer time enough for you to
make a fantastic feast
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