{{Short description|Unleavened dough}} {{Other uses}} {{Infobox food | name = Filo | image = Baklava.jpg | image_size = 250px | caption = Baklava, made with filo pastry | alternate_name = | region = | creator = | course = | place_of_origin = Central Asia, Ottoman Empire | country = | type = Dough | served = | main_ingredient = Flour, water, oil | variations = | calories = | other = | no_recipes = true | no_commons = true }}
'''Filo''', '''phyllo''' or '''yufka''' is a very thin unleavened dough used for making pastries such as baklava and börek. Filo-based pastries are made by layering many sheets of filo brushed with oil or butter; the pastry is then baked.
==Name and etymology==
The name ''filo'' or ''phyllo'' comes from Greek {{lang|el|φύλλο}} 'thin sheet' {{Literal translation|leaf}}.<ref>{{cite dictionary |dictionary= Oxford Dictionaries |title=filo |url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/filo?rskey=nDCfq7&result=1%23m_en_gb0295710 |archive-date=23 July 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723192652/http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/filo?rskey=nDCfq7&result=1%23m_en_gb0295710}}</ref><ref name="Davidson" /> The Turkish name is yufka, from Old Turkish ''yuvka'' 'thin, weak'.<ref>[https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/kelime/yufka] Nişanyan Dictionary "yufka"</ref>
== History == ===Origin=== The origin of the practice of stretching raw dough into paper-thin sheets is unclear, with many cultures claiming credit.<ref name=":02">Mayer, Caroline E. "[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Phyllo Facts]". Washington Post. 1989. [https://web.archive.org/web/20191229205837/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Archived].</ref>
Some attribute the origin of filo to the Ancient Greeks;<ref name=":02" /> Homer's ''Odyssey'', written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.<ref name=":02" /> In the fifth century BC, Philoxenos states in his poem "''Dinner''" that, in the final drinking course of a meal, hosts would prepare and serve cheesecake made with milk and honey that was baked into a pie.<ref>Hoffman, Susanna. ''The Olive and the Caper''. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. {{ISBN|9781563058486}}</ref> Desserts made with this prototype would include the placenta cake, which historian Speros Vyronis describesit as a "Byzantine favorite" and "the same as Turkish baklava".<ref>Speros Vryonis ''The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor'', 1971, p. 482</ref>
Others attribute the origin of filo to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, who developed traditions of thin, layered flatbreads called ''yufka'' during the medieval period to suit their nomadic lifestyle, while its paper-thin form is likely to have evolved later in the palace kitchens of Ottoman Istanbul.<ref name="Davidson">{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Charles (as CP) |title=The Oxford Companion to Food |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |page= |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000davi_g3y4/page/299/mode/1up|at=|editor-last=Davidson|editor-first=Alan|editor-link=Alan Davidson (food writer)|chapter=Filo|pages=299|author-link=Charles Perry (food writer)}}</ref><ref name="Goldstein">{{cite book |last1=Goldstein |first1=Darra |title=The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |page=256 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jbi6BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA256&source=gbs_selected_pages&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref><ref name="Sousanis">{{cite book |last1=Sousanis |first1=Marti |title=The Art of Filo Cookbook: International Entrées, Appetizers & Desserts Wrapped in Flaky Pastry |date=1983 |publisher=Aris Books |location=Berkeley |pages=13-14 |url=https://archive.org/details/artoffilocookboo00sous/page/13/mode/1up}}</ref><ref name="Mack">{{cite book |last1=Mack |first1=Glenn Randall |last2=Surina |first2=Asele |title=Food Culture in Russia and Central Asia |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Press |page=92 |url=https://www.academia.edu/93154461/Food_Culture_in_Russia_and_Central_Asia}}</ref><ref name="Marks">{{cite book |last1=Marks |first1=Gil |title=Encyclopedia of Jewish Food |date=2010 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |page=1437 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gFK_yx7Ps7cC&pg=PT1437&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false}}</ref><ref name="McWilliams">{{cite book |last1=Işın |first1=Priscilla Mary |title=Wrapped & Stuffed Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford Symposium |location=Oxford |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MD0QDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA222&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false |editor-last=McWilliams |editor-first=Mark |chapter=Yufka: Food For The Cook's Imagination |pages=222-224}}</ref><ref name="C Perry">Perry, Charles. "The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava", in ''A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East'' (ed. Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994. {{ISBN|1-86064-603-4}}, pages 87-93</ref>
Charles Perry argues that nomadic Turkic peoples had an “obsessive interest” in making layered bread, possibly in emulation of the thick oven breads of city people.<ref name="Davidson" /> Grain-based foods played a large part of their diet, and since they were nomads, a type of bread that could be rolled out and cooked rapidly on a portable griddle was more practical.<ref name="Goldstein" /><ref name="Mack" /> In 1433, the French pilgrim Bertrandon de la Brocquière (1400-1459) encountered Turcoman nomads in the mountains of southern Turkey, who offered him fresh filo with yogurt, cheese, and grapes.<ref name="Goldstein" /> He remarked on the speed of their preparation, writing that "they make two of their cakes sooner than a waferman can make one wafer".<ref name="Goldstein" />
According to Marti Sousanis, this bread was called ''yufka'', the term modern Turkish uses for a thin sheet of dough.<ref name="Davidson" /><ref name="Sousanis" /> The 11th-century Turkic dictionary ''Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk'', compiled by Mahmud Kashgari, records the term ''yuvgha'', an archaic form of ''yufka'', defining it as “pleated or folded bread”.<ref name="Davidson" /> It is mentioned on several occasions, including one preparation in which the dough was folded and fried in butter, and a variety of dough (''yalaci yuvga'') described as “so fragile that it crumbled at the touch”.<ref name="Davidson" /><ref name="Goldstein" />
Perry observes that these layered breads survive among the Turkic peoples.<ref name="C Perry" /> In Uzbekistan, a cake known as ''yupga'' is made by frying a thin sheet of dough on both sides, layering minced meat and onions in it, covering the filling with a raw sheet of dough, turning it over to fry the raw side and then repeating the process to build up a cake that is ten or more layers thick.<ref name="C Perry" /> A similar dish is made in Tatarstan called ''yoka'', consisting of ten to twelve thin sheets of dough that are fried, buttered, and stacked before being cut into wedges in pie-fashion and served with tea.<ref name="C Perry" />
Sousanis suggests that ''yufkas'' did not evolve into filo until after the Turks entered the Near East in the 10th century and came in contact with the advanced cookery of Persian courts, who introduced an early form of puff pastry that involved laminating and buttering the dough, rolling it thin, and filling it with almonds.<ref name="Sousanis" />
===Ottoman period=== With the rise of the Ottoman Empire, many argue that paper-thin pastry associated with modern filo was invented in the Ottoman kitchens of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.<ref name="Davidson" /><ref name="McWilliams" /><ref name="Sousanis" /><ref name="Marks" /> According to Priscilla Mary Işın, flatbreads and sheets of dough underwent a transformation in the Ottoman kitchens, where chefs constantly refined techniques for rolling and stretching dough into silky translucent sheets of filo.<ref name="McWilliams" /> Sousanis and Gil Marks similarly argue that Ottoman pastry chefs perfected a method for stretching the traditional ''yufka'' into extreme thinness, using it to produce an array of baked goods, such as baklava and börek.<ref name="Sousanis" /><ref name="Marks" /> Baklava appears to be the first dish made of filo.<ref name="Sousanis" />
Darra Goldstein notes that filo is traditionally rolled using a long, thin rolling pin known in Turkish as an ''oklava''.<ref name="Goldstein" /> In the 19th century, Ottoman pastry chefs developed a faster method of rolling out walnut-sized balls of pastries into large circles, in which they rolled a dozen of starch-dusted layers simultaneously.<ref name="Goldstein" /> Rolling filo was widely practiced among rural Turks, according to a Turkish cookbook written in 1900 by the Ottoman army officer Mahmud Nedim, who advised unmarried officers that if they could not roll out pastry themselves they should ask one of the soldiers, “most of whom know how to make yufka”.<ref name="Goldstein" />
===Popularization===
The Turks introduced paper-thin dough throughout the Ottoman Empire, including the Balkans, where it became known as ''phyllo'' (“leaf” in Greek) and ''fila'' in Arabic.<ref name="Marks" /> Following the Ottoman conquest of Hungary under Suleiman the Great in the 16th century, Hungarian sources began referring to a pastry known as ''rétes'', the first recorded name for ''strudel'', whose development has been influenced by the concept of ''yufka''.<ref name="Sousanis" /><ref name="Marks" /> This dough became integrated in many local pastry traditions of Europe, as well as its Asian and African colonies.<ref name="Sousanis" />
Beginning in the 1960s, Greek immigrants began to popularize hand-made filo in parts of the United States.<ref name="Marks" /> With the invention of a practical filo machine in 1971, commercial filo dough was suddenly available frozen in American supermarkets, making it accessible to everyone.<ref name="Marks" />
==Preparation== [[File:BougatsaAthens.webm|thumb|Preparation of custard bougatsa in an Athens cafe]] Filo dough is made with flour, water and a small amount of oil.<ref>{{cite book |last=Marks |first=Gil |title=Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World |date=2008 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=9780544187504 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lb3MVYVp_9sC}}</ref> Homemade filo takes time and skill, requiring progressive rolling and stretching to a single thin and very large sheet. A very big table is used, preferably with a marble top. If the dough is stretched by hand, a long, thin rolling pin is used, with continual flouring between layers to prevent the sheets from sticking to one another.<ref name=terms>{{cite book |last=Helou |first=Anissa |title=Sweet Middle East: Classic Recipes, from Baklava to Fig Ice Cream |date=2015 |publisher=Chronicle Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GF5oCgAAQBAJ |page=73|isbn=9781452130620 }}</ref> In modern times, mechanical rollers are also used. Prior to World War I, households in Istanbul typically had two filo makers to prepare razor thin sheets for baklava, and the relatively thicker sheets used for ''börek''. Fresh and frozen versions are prepared for commercial markets.<ref name=terms/>
==Use==
When using filo to make pastries, the thin layers are made by first rolling out the sheets of dough to the final thickness, then brushing them with oil, or melted butter for some desserts, and stacking them. This contrasts with puff pastry and croissant doughs, where the layers are stacked into a thick layer of dough, then folded and rolled out multiple times to produce a laminated dough containing thin layers of dough and fat.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}
Filo can be used in many ways: layered, folded, rolled, or ruffled, with various fillings.
=== List of filo-based pastries === * Baklava – dessert made with layers of filo, chopped nuts, and syrup or honey. * Banitsa – A Bulgarian dish consisting of eggs, cheese and filo baked in the oven. * Börek – A savory filo pie. * Bougatsa – A type of Greek breakfast pastry. * Bülbül yuvası – A Middle eastern dessert with pistachios and syrup. * Bundevara – A Serbian sweet pie filled with pumpkin. * Flia – An Albanian dish consisting of multiple crêpe-like layers brushed with cream and served with sour cream. * Galaktoboureko – A dessert consisting of filo and muhallebi. * Gibanica – A Balkan dish made from filo, white cheese, and eggs. * Pastizz – A savory pastry from Malta filled with ricotta or mushy peas. * Savory spinach pie – A Balkans' spinach pie. * Tiropita – A Greek dish similar to Börek, filled with a cheese-egg mixture. * Zelnik – A savory pie from the Balkans. * Jabukovača – Bosnian pastry made of filo dough stuffed with apples. * Pastilla - Moroccan pie made of thin Warqa dough stuffed with either chicken, seafood or lamb.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Karadsheh |first=Suzy |date=2022-03-04 |title=Best Pastilla (Skillet Chicken Pie) |url=https://www.themediterraneandish.com/pastilla-recipe/ |access-date=2025-02-22 |website=The Mediterranean Dish |language=en-US}}</ref> * Warbat - Jordanian and Syrian dessert consisting of layers of dough and semolina custard.
==Comparison to similar pastries==
There are several similar foods similar to filo that are frequently confused with filo:<ref name="oxfordFood2014"/><ref name="sbs2021"> {{cite web |title=Introducing brik, the Tunisian pastry you've probably eaten but never made |url=https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/introducing-brik-the-tunisian-pastry-youve-probably-eaten-but-never-made/35eoef82r |website=SBS Food |access-date=6 January 2026 |language=en |date=13 July 2021}} </ref>
* Maghrebi malsouka (AKA ''warqa'' or ''brik'' sheets): Malsouka thicker than filo and is made by cooking a semolina-based dough on a hot pan.<ref name="sbs2021" /><ref name="marks2010"> {{cite book |last1=Marks |first1=Gil |title=Encyclopedia of Jewish Food |date=17 November 2010 |publisher=HMH |isbn=978-0-544-18631-6 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Jewish_Food/gFK_yx7Ps7cC?gbpv=1&pg=PT280&printsec=frontcover |access-date=24 December 2025 |language=en |pages=280-282,1883-1888}} </ref><ref> {{Cite news|url=https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/archive/2011/11/01/chef-fehmi-cooks-malsouka-tunisian/38236977007/|title=Chef Fehmi cooks malsouka, a Tunisian-style of crepe|publication-date=2011|agency=Wicked Local}} </ref><ref name="nyt2017"> {{cite news |last1=Yotam |first1=Ottolenghi |title=The Challenge of Perfect Phyllo |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/dining/phyllo-dough-recipes-ottolenghi.html |access-date=6 January 2026 |work=The New York Times |date=May 9, 2017}} </ref> * Turkish yufka: Yufka is an unleavened bread cooked on a saj, thicker than filo sheets, and may sometimes differ in ingredients.<ref name="beyondIstanbul"> {{cite book |last1=Eckhardt |first1=Robyn |last2=Hagerman |first2=David |title=Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey |date=2017 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-544-44431-7 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r2M6DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false |access-date=5 January 2026 |language=en}} </ref><ref> {{cite web |last1=Ballinger |first1=Geoffrey |title=Yufka, Turkey's All-Star Pastry Sheets |url=https://culinarybackstreets.com/stories/istanbul/yufka |website=Culinary Backstreets |access-date=5 January 2026 |language=en}} </ref><ref> {{cite book |last1=Sivrioglu |first1=Somer |last2=Dale |first2=David |title=Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish eating |date=3 December 2019 |publisher=Allen & Unwin |isbn=978-1-76087-306-6 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Anatolia/GkyrDwAAQBAJ?gbpv=1&pg=PT66&printsec=frontcover |access-date=5 January 2026 |language=en}} </ref> * Güllaç wafers: Güllaç wafers are made by pouring a starch-based wafer of a hot saj.<ref name="isin2013"> {{cite book |last1=Isin |first1=Mary |author1-link=:tr:Priscilla Mary Işın |title=Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts |date=8 January 2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-84885-898-5 |pages=170-177 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sherbet_and_Spice/vHJVzAEACAAJ |access-date=3 November 2025 |language=en |chapter=Güllaç}} </ref><ref name="isin2011"> {{cite news |last1=Isin |first1=Priscilla Mary |title=Gullac |url=https://www.latimes.com/recipe/gullac |access-date=3 November 2025 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=25 August 2011}} </ref> ** In Egyptian Arabic, phyllo is referred to as "Güllaç dough" ({{lang|ar|عجين جلاش}}).<ref name="elwattan2023"> {{cite news |title=قصة صناعة أول «لفة جلاش يوناني» بالمنصورة في محل عمره 90 عاما |url=https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/6690089 |access-date=6 January 2026 |work=El Watan News |date=17 July 2023 |language=ar |trans-title=The story of making the first "Greek phyllo pastry roll" in Mansoura in a 90-year-old shop}} </ref><ref name="oxfordFood2014"> {{cite book |last1=Davidson |first1=Alan |title=The Oxford Companion to Food |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-967733-7 |page=307 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Oxford_Companion_to_Food/RL6LAwAAQBAJ |access-date=6 January 2026 |language=en}} </ref>
==See also== *Flaky pastry *Puff pastry *Samosa *Strudel *Wonton *Yufka
==References== {{reflist}}
===Bibliography=== * Engin Akın, Mirsini Lambraki, Kosta Sarıoğlu, ''Aynı Sofrada İki Ülke: Türk ve Yunan Mutfağı'', Istanbul 2003, {{ISBN|975-458-484-2}} * Perry, Charles. "The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava", in ''A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East'' (ed. Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994. {{ISBN|1-86064-603-4}} * {{cite book |last=Sousanis |first=Marti |title=The Art of Filo Cookbook: International Entrées, Appetizers & Desserts Wrapped in Flaky Pastry |publisher=Aris Books |date=1983 |isbn=978-0-943186-06-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SS0-AQAAIAAJ |access-date=2025-06-13}}
==External links== *{{wiktionary-inline}} *{{commons category-inline|Phyllo}} *{{cookbook-inline|Phyllo dough}}
{{Pastries}}
Category:Greek pastries Category:Middle Eastern cuisine Category:Balkan cuisine Category:Doughs Category:Turkish pastries Category:Baklava Category:Articles containing video clips