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| Food - Recipes | |
| Wednesday, 28 September 2005 | |
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Making a strudel that dreams are made of.
Apple Strudel like Grandma used to make
My Big Ma never made strudel, but she did have apple trees among other fruit trees, and when she died her children did not fight over money or property, they fought over the remaining cases of preserves she still had stored from the previous summer. I hated summer at her house because I knew it meant collecting fruit, and I was scared of the wasps in the grape vines.
Somebody's grandmother did however make the strudel at Trattoria Pallotta in Assisi, and it was so good I couldn't stop dreaming about it, so I wrote for the recipe. When my friends and I ate in Assisi, we spotted the strudel on the dessert table. There were two strudels, one whole, and one from which the end piece had been sliced off and the rest of the strudel was just waiting to be divied up. The first thing we did was alert our server that the end piece should be put aside for us-- the crust is the best part. She agreed not to serve it to anyone. We kept our eye on the strudel during the entire meal (we were right next to the dessert table), and when it came time to order, we ordered one slice a piece. She not only brought us the end piece, she basically divided the strudel in three slices and gave it all to us. She only charged us for one portion. My friend and her husband were so ecstatic about the strudel that they had a baby 9 months later.
The "typical Assisi dessert" is a kind of a strudel, but don't be lured by the ones that you'll see in cafes and bakeries in and around the main square. Go directly to Trattoria Pallotta.
Apple Strudel, almost Assisi Style (recipe from Trattoria Pallotta)
Dough
Filling
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160 degrees C)
To make the dough:
Mix together the ingredients for the dough, adding enough white wine in order to render the dough elastic enough to roll out dough as if you were rolling out fresh pasta. The dough should be very thin very large yet elastic sheet (you will need to roll it up like a sausage later). Beating this dough around develops its gluten and makes a better finished strudel, but just rolling it out like pasta is ok too.
To make the filling:
Peel and core the apples, cut into slices.
Add chopped walnuts, pine nuts, marmalade, cinnamon, zest, and sugar.
Mix with a spook until well combined.
On the rolled out dough sprinkle the breadcrumbs the fruit filling; Roll up tightly and plump up for shape.
Bake on a lightly oiled foil-covered cookie sheet for 40 minutes in a ventilated oven. (If your oven is not ventilated, adjust temperature accordingly).
Remove from oven when sufficiently browned; If it browns too much, cover with foil.
Serve with pastry cream or powdered sugar, or whatever you want. image (not of Pallotta strudel which is less flaky): fer ver |
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