 |
| Another day, another strudel |
 |
| Nancy slams the strudel dough |
This time, however, I chose a dough recipe that I hadn't used before. It was from Jennie Grossinger's The Art of Jewish Cooking. The fatal flaw was that either the recipe didn't call for sufficient water, or the local flour (Guadalupana OPTIMA— EDIT: Now I'm pretty sure we used Sello Rojo Tradicional. No additives.) was lower in moisture. The bottom line was that the first dough Nancy and I made was so tough and dry that we could hardly extend it. Rather than waste it, I decided to use it to wrap a savory Cabbage-Potato-Sauerkraut and Bacon filling. Recipe below.*
 |
| First try: tough dough (A challenge in English pronunciation as well!) |
 |
| Savory Cabbage, etc Strudel |
For the Apple Strudel, we adjusted the amount of water and oil in the dough upward, and the results were somewhat better, although still considerably short of ideal. But the delicious and abundant apple, raisin and walnut filling pleased our guests.
 |
| Apple Strudel |
This is the one we first used, from Jennie Grossinger's Art of Jewish Cooking.
Flour 3 cups sifted
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 tbsp salad oil
1/4 cup lukewarm water.
(Note the sifted instruction, which we didn't do.)
This next is from Ratner's World Famous Meatless Cookbook.
water, lukewarm 1 cup
eggwhites (about 2) 1/3 cup
oil 1/3 cup
sugar 1/4 cup (the only one to put sugar in the dough.)
salt 1 teaspoon
flour 4 1/2 to 5 cups all purpose flour
Finally (although I do have more recipes for strudel dough), from The Art of Fine Baking, by Paula Peck.
flour 1 1/2 cups
salt 1/4 tsp
lemon juice 1 tbsp
egg whites 2
peanut oil 4 tbsps
water 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Almost all classic strudel dough recipes call for incorporating the ingredients, kneading and often, beating the dough piece down on the work table up to 100 times. This develops the gluten.
There follows a rest of up to two hours, to let the dough relax so it becomes finely extensible.
The stretching starts by simply rolling the dough to a manageable diameter. Then the baker or bakers, using the backs of their hands lift and gently stretch the dough, gradually working around the table, until the dough becomes gossamer thin. Patience is necessary and it's best to proceed slowly and gently.
Any small tears in the dough sheet are negligible because they will be covered when the whole pastry is rolled up.
The dough sheet is brushed with melted butter or oil, sprinkled with finely ground bread or cake crumbs, then chopped nuts when appropriate.
The filling is placed in a ridge along the near side of the dough sheet, leaving several inches uncovered to begin the rolling up.
When the strudel is large, the easiest way to roll it up is by lifting the sheet or table cloth. Help may be needed to deposit the rolled strudel into a parchment lined pan. (Of course, the oven is preheated to 375º F.)
Yet another butter or oil baste is made over the strudel surface and it's placed in the oven. Ours took about 30-35 minutes to achieve a well browned color.
For sweet strudels, you may apply another butter baste plus a sprinkling of granulated sugar in the last 5-10 minutes.
Despite problems with the dough, we consider this a successful and fun collaboration.
*Here's the original Croatian Savory Cabbage Filling:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds cabbage, cored and shredded 1 sliced medium onion
1 tablespoon salt 1/4 cup oil, butter, lard or bacon grease 1/2 pound diced bacon (optional) 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 package filo dough, thawed Additional oil, butter or lard for the filo dough Plain yogurt or sour cream for garnish (optional)
Preparation:
2 1/2 pounds cabbage, cored and shredded 1 sliced medium onion
1 tablespoon salt 1/4 cup oil, butter, lard or bacon grease 1/2 pound diced bacon (optional) 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 package filo dough, thawed Additional oil, butter or lard for the filo dough Plain yogurt or sour cream for garnish (optional)
Preparation:
-
1. Place the shredded cabbage and sliced onion in a large nonmetallic bowl and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt. Mix
and let sit for 2 hours. Drain and squeeze out as much moisture as possible.
-
2. If using oil, butter or lard, heat in a large skillet over medium heat. Add cabbage and sugar and sauté until
tender. Season with salt and pepper. If using bacon, fry it in a large skillet until crisp. Remove bacon and
reserve, and sauté the cabbage and sugar in the bacon fat, adding more oil or lard, if necessary. When cabbage
is tender, mix in the reserved bacon and season to taste.
- <SNIP!>
- Note that I added about 1 1/2 cups of well drained and squeezed sauerkraut, 4 medium potatoes, boiled, skinned and cubed, plus some dill weed. —DC
http://easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/croatianserbmaincourses/r/cabbage-strudel.htm
Mark had set up a digital camera aimed at the work table and had set it to take one frame a second for an hour. The results are entertaining, to say the least. Here's a portion of the resulting time lapse video. We may look frantic or angry, but not really.
The moral is: Sometimes you beat the strudel and sometimes it beats you.
Video by Mark Emmer. Used by permission.
