Mushroom Strudel from HarvardX Science and Cooking Class

A few fellow LTHers are taking the online course, Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science. It is being discussed on LTH here:

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=38557

In this week's class, White House pastry chef, Bill Yosses, demonstrates the principles of dough elasticity using strudel as an example. In particular, the lecture was about the overdevelopment of gluten that allows the dough to be stretched paper-thin. The crust of the apple strudel he made was not the typical filo dough consisting of several butter-laminated sheets, but rather a single, thin sheet rolled up around the filling. He sprinkled granulated sugar on the dough before rolling to keep the layers from fusing.

I decided to reproduce a savory version of his strudel using some chanterelle and royal trumpet mushrooms, sauteed with shallots in butter and flashed with a little marsala. The dough stretched out easily. I could have made it even thinner - much thinner - but I wanted to keep the dimensions similar to the instructor's. Next time, I'll use only half the dough and stretch it much thinner.

Instead of granulated sugar, I brushed the dough before rolling with some butter. The outside was brushed with melted butter also. Perhaps an egg wash on the outside would have looked more appealing. All-in-all, it was a delicious meal.

After reading your post, I couldn't stop thinking about those mushrooms and how delicious it must have tasted. Were you satisfied with how the dough turned out?

buttercream wrote:Were you satisfied with how the dough turned out?

When making strudel, I always use store-bought filo sheets. I liked the flavor of this dough better, but prefer the ultra-flakey texture of the filo. If I make this dough twice as thin, I think it may be a winner.

Well, I'd say it looks flaky enough and I'll bet the flavor blows the flavor of the purchased filo out of the water. One note: I'd probably avoid the egg wash because it tightens the pores so to speak and won't allow breathing, thus reducing some of that flakiness and making for a softer crust. Perhaps a very diluted egg wash, some cream or butter would be a better idea. In any event, it looks terrific - nice job!

BR wrote:Well, I'd say it looks flaky enough and I'll bet the flavor blows the flavor of the purchased filo out of the water. One note: I'd probably avoid the egg wash because it tightens the pores so to speak and won't allow breathing, thus reducing some of that flakiness and making for a softer crust. Perhaps a very diluted egg wash, some cream or butter would be a better idea. In any event, it looks terrific - nice job!

I'm with BR it looks delicious. At one point I considered making my own filo, but even I backed away from that rabbit hole.

Bill/SFNM wrote:

buttercream wrote:Were you satisfied with how the dough turned out?

When making strudel, I always use store-bought filo sheets. I liked the flavor of this dough better, but prefer the ultra-flakey texture of the filo. If I make this dough twice as thin, I think it may be a winner.

My experience, using ultra thin strudel dough for apple strudel, is that it is great directly out of the oven, but gets soggy much more quickly than filo dough strudels