This week's theme, by @Qurator in #hivetopchef contest, is Favorite Traditional Food.
You can read more about the contest here
Apple strudel became a popular dish in the entire area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the 18th century and is today part of many cuisines in Central Europe.
The dish came to the territory of today's Austria via Hungary from the Ottoman Empire. The oldest record of a strudel recipe is written in a cookbook from 1697, which is kept in the Vienna City Library. According to this Viennese recipe, the dough should be rolled out so thin, that a love letter can be read through it.
In Austria the apple strudel is called 'Apfelstrudel', in Italy 'strudel di mele', in Poland 'strudel jabłkowy', in Romania 'strudel de mere', in Hungary 'almás rétes' and in Croatia 'savijača sa jabukama'.
The basic filling for the apple strudel is made from grated apples, sugar and cinnamon. It can also be filled with raisins, cottage cheese, cranberries, pumpkin, salt...
Ingredients for the dough:
- 250 grams of flour
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 0.5 teaspoons of salt
- 125 ml of warm water
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Ingredients for the filling:
- 1.5 kilograms of apples (sour varieties are best for strudel)
- 150 grams of sugar
- vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
- 3 tablespoons of oil
- 20 grams of breadcrumbs
- 20 grams of vegetable butter
- 20 grams of melted vegetable butter
- Sift the flour through a sieve into a large bowl. Make a hole in the middle and pour oil into it, add salt and enough warm water to knead a smooth and pliable dough. Form the dough into a ball, coat it with oil, cover with a heated bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes.
- Melt the butter and quickly fry the breadcrumbs brown a little. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool down.
Peel and wash the apples and grate them. Add sugar, vanilla sugar, apple cider vinegar and cinnamon and mix the ingredients well.
- Roll out the dough very thinly, coat with oil and stretch it further with your hands. Coat with fried breadcrumbs and apple filling. According to the traditional recipe, spread the filling only on the ¾ drawn dough, leaving the last quarter empty, so that the outer layer of the dough is a little thicker when wrapped.
- Wrap the dough in a roll on the longer side. If strudel is too long, it can be cut into several pieces and transferred to a baking pan.
- Coat it with melted butter and bake in a preheated oven at 200⁰C, for about 40 and 60 minutes, or until it gets a nice golden brown crust.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with tea or coffee.
