Easter Sunday, Mike, the boys, and I, all fisted in for authentic Hungarian Strudel makin'. Mike's Mom's(Gail Diley) side has been practicing this tradition since they were children. Here is a little background on his family tradition:
" This became a treasured Diley family tradition. Mom had learned to make it from her mother, who learned in Hungary. Mom made it with her frequently, but her two sisters, Westy and Tess, never really learned to make it. Paula learned to make it first-hand from Mom and taught Gail during the season when we lived together. We often added frozen phyllo dough as a fill-in (for the torn spaces- we didn't master that part as good as Mom). One of our treasured memories was when we invited Westy over and she joined in the kneading and tossing. We agreed she reminded us of mom pounding and tossing the dough. When we ate this in the Diley household, it was always as the entire meal." ~picture above is of the Apple Strudel~
We had a total of ten people all partaking in this process. Basically, the dough was made, then kneaded and thrown about 100 times...seriously. As the the dough rested we made three traditional fillings(apple, cheese and cinnamon, cabbage). There are just a million variations you could come up with for the filling, but we kept it real old school.
Once the dough rested for about 30 minutes the stretching of the dough begins. In order for the dough to retain its elasticity the room's humidity must be kept at Sauna temperatures, so we kept a pot of boiling water going and buttoned up all the windows. As we glistened we began to roll and stretch the dough...
Once the dough was stretched we added the filling and rolled it into a log then baked it for about 30 minutes...
Here is a little sampling of each strudel... Enjoy ~ Jaime
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