Peasant Meals / Working With Dough

[toggleswitch2]

I want to learn how to work with and make all kinds of doughs.

I remember my yiayia (granny) made homemade phyllo (filo) dough for her "pies" (Aatually, pites "pee-Tess"=> plural of pita). Well known is Spankopita (spinach-pie). Pita basically means "flat".

I have had a taste in my mouth for Lahanopita(cabbage-pie), but with homemade dough.

This video made my hankering worse.
GD if she doesn't look like my mother!

 

[toggleswitch2]

Made a "play-date" with my aunt to do this next week, so shen can teach me. But I WANT IT NOW! WAAAAAA *LOL*

So off into the kithcen I ventured.

Recipe for dough, dowel ("rolling pin") pan,

check, check, check.

For a novice like me, making dough to fit a round pan is easier.

BTW in Greece round pans win over rectangular ones for all types of baking and roasting in that in a 60cm square oven (24 x 24 inches) rectangular pans are a waste of usable space.
'

 

[toggleswitch2]

flour.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Breadmaker to knead the dough.

Hey, I'im a city boy. I can only get SO rustic..........

 

[toggleswitch2]

$6 at the thrift store, BTW. It was like-new and SO clean!

Stockpot / "dutch oven" and cabbage for filling.

Started with 1/4 cup oil. Needed about 1/2 cup altogether.

(Where a U.S. cup = 230ml)

 

[toggleswitch2]

Medium to large onion diced and put to sautee.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Add diced cabbage. Pieces are about 1" square (2.5cm).

Medium to medium-high heat. Saute a few minutes.

Added another 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup water. Cabbage will steam and then go back to sauteeing.

I added adobo, which basically is just salt, pepper and garlic, pre-mixed. Added some parsley.

Stir occasionally. Cabbage will reduce as the water is removed from it.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Then I added the ingredinets to the breadmaker using its pizza dough cycle (11 minutes in total).

This is GadgetGary's bread-dough recipe

3.5 cups flour
1.25 cups lukewarm water
1 teaspoon salt (5ml)
1 tablespoon sugar (15ml)
1 tablespoon olive oil(15ml)
2.5 teaspooons yeast (12.5ml)

I cut the sugar and omitted the yeast.

Once done I was ready "to open the dough" as they say in ethnic-speak.

Use a plastic tablecoloth on your table or a surface you can get full fo flour.

Yes I do have some plastic on mime FOR SHAME!). The real-estate agents were destroying it when they were in the process of selling my house.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Broke the dough ball into two equal halves. Always good to have a balanced top and a bottom.

The dowel is about the thickness of a window-shade roller.
It was well-sanded and rubbed with cooking oil (year ago when bought) to season it.

I have scored two lines in it that are the size of the pan.
The left one is visible in this picture.

Have water and four ready to use as needed.

Theg we jsut stretch and pull and roll fromm the center out until the desired size is reached. Turn it over a few times as well.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Prepare the pam by oiling it, using a paper towel to coat all surfaces including sides and rim.

 

[toggleswitch2]

With melted butter and a brush, coat top and bottom of bottom layer of dough and place in pan with the dough oeverlapping/ extending over the pan.

Now make four balls out of the remainig dough (which is half of the orignal batch).

Flatten to discs of equal size. Liberally butter between layers. Make a stack of "pancakes" (BTW are pancakes an American thing or do English-speaking and other counrries have them as well?)

FLatten them and make the top layer. The butter between the layers is supposed to make them crusty and flakey.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Add three to four eggs to COOLED cabbage. Mix. (It is the binder that holds it all together). Add to pan over bootm layer of dough.

Cover with top layer of dough. Bueer all visible surfaces liberally. Roll overhang over the top, butter that too.

Score pita(pie)into intended pieces. This is important to allow steam to escape and prevent the thing from rising like a souffle.

Here is how it looks before the oven.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Bake in 375*F (190*C) oven for 45 to 50 minutes or as needed.

Raw filling? Cook at 350*F (175*C)for a longer amount of time.

Rotate by 1/3 every 15 minutes.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Lahanopita

Finished product.

Cabbage pie with homemade dough.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Lahano (Greek form Turkish) means cabbage, but lahanika means vegetables. So lahanopita could mean cabbage pie or vegetable pie .. which io theory could include spinach-pie.

 

[maytagbear]

Most flour

using cuisines have a pancake or analog.

To the best of my knowledge, in the UK, they are an easy and inexpensive dessert, with jam or Lyle's (wonderful) Golden Syrup.

The Mexican pancake is called "tortilla."

The French pancake is a "crepe."

and so on.

Your cabbage pie looks good, Toggle!

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[toggleswitch2]

Filling can be anything really-

leeks
onions
meat-sauce (bolognese)
cold-cuts and cheeses
ham and cheese
shredded chicken, turkey, pork with a bechamel sauce or a gravy.
meat-loaf slices

Just shove it in there and ask quesiotns later!

KALI OREKSI!
BON APETITE!
BUON APETITO!

 

[toggleswitch2]

I was about to have some Oreo cookies with milk, when I had a brilliant idea............

 

[toggleswitch2]

By the way, in our gas ovens here, the heat enters the oven cavity form beneath the oven floor, where the flame is located (which is a removable piece).

There are openings around three or four of the sides (sometimes including along the back-wall of the oven) to allow air-currents and heat in.

In older ovens, one burner-tube provides heat ABOVE the broiler pan with an exposed flame, and heat up to the oven where there is no flame. In other words the oven is above the broiler/grille and they both employ the same burner and flame in the middle.