CHICKEN SPINACH AND ROSEMARY STRUDEL

There was a time when a holiday for me meant Manali. Year after year I’d go there — by a rickety state transport bus, once on my faithful Yezdi and later by car — and spend weeks there. I loved it for a lot of reasons — the beautiful snow-capped western Himalayas, the gurgling Beas river, the warm and friendly locals, and most of all for its food.

That’s where I met Peter and Trish, a couple who’d set up a little shack where they baked some wonderful stuff. That and the German bakery on the Mall were my favourite haunts. Every day after lunch I’d go there for a warm apple strudel and/or a gooey walnut strudel. The cold air and long walks helped you build up a healthy appetite, and strudels were just right to keep you going till tea time.

Chef Subrata Debnath is offering a wide variety of strudels

I suppose I was first captivated by the image of a warm strudel sometime in 1965, when Julie Andrews sang of crisp apple strudels and schnitzel with noodles. So when Executive Chef Subrata Debnath of Hotel Hindustan International in Calcutta told me that he was working on savoury and sweet strudels, the floodgates of my memory bank were flung open.

The strudels in Manali were sweet — and oozed with the sweet and warm apple mashed inside the pastry. The walnut strudels were mildly sweet, and the filling of chopped walnuts, raisins and other goodies was nice and crunchy.

I like savoury strudels, too — because the filling can consist of everything that you enjoy — from sausages and spinach to minced lamb and cheese. Chef Debnath’s recipes are rather interesting, for he ably mixes different kinds of meat or vegetables with the right herbs. He presents a chicken spinach and rosemary strudel, a hearty breakfast strudel with crispy bacon, sausages, cooked onions, cheese, red pepper, apples, broccoli, spinach, cream and orange juice, a salmon and sun-dried tomato strudel and white chocolate and mixed berry open strudel .

Strudel, as we all know, is a flaky pastry — and the world itself comes from the German ‘strudel’ that means an eddy or a whirlpool. The layers of the pastry open up like a whirlpool, which explains the name. The Greek equivalent of a strudel is bourekia, while the Turkish call it burek.

BREAKFAST STRUDEL

Unlike some other baked pastries, the casing of a strudel is a little hard, so that it doesn’t crumble once you bite into it. The chef advises you to refrigerate the pastry for at least 30 minutes before you bake it. This, he says, is to ensure that you get the right flaky layers.

You need your phyllo sheets for a strudel — paper thin leaves of unleavened flour dough. These days, you get readymade phyllo leaves in the supermarkets. But you can always make it fresh at home, though it’s a bit laborious. The dough has to be strong — and you have to knead it for long to get the right elasticity, which is the key to a good strudel. Put flour, egg, water and oil in a bowl and mix it till the dough is soft and sticky. Then knead this pretty vigorously for at least 15 minutes. Now form a ball and cover it with a warmed bowl.

Leave it to rest in a warm place for at least an hour. After this, you roll out the dough, and then gently stretch the dough working from the centre to the outside using the backs of your hands until it is paper thin. And then of course you stuff it and bake it.

Try out chef Debnath’s recipes — and I am sure you won’t be disappointed. A good strudel is a delight. For me, at least, it conjures up visions of mountains, rivers and cedar trees. To say nothing of a young Julie Andrews.

Salmon and sun-dried tomato strudel

Ingredients

• 400gm sour cream l100gm sun-dried tomato •1 garlic clove • 1tbs fresh oregano lSalt and pepper to taste • 250gm butter • 2tbs mixed fresh herbs • 6 phyllo pastry leaves • 450gm salmon fillet • 3tbs basil pesto

Method

Place sour cream, sun-dried tomato, garlic, oregano and salt and pepper in a food processor until the mixture is smooth. Add melted butter and mixed herbs. Place a phyllo leaf on a sheet of parchment paper. Brush with herb butter to cover the entire surface. Repeat with the remaining phyllo leaves. Spread sour cream/tomato mixture on the phyllo about 2-1/2 inches from the edge facing you. Make a strip of the mix approximately as wide as your salmon strips. Leave 1-2 inches on each end free of the sour cream mixture. Lay salmon strips on top of sour cream mixture. Rub top of salmon evenly with pesto sauce. Fold the edge closest to you over the salmon. Using the parchment paper, continue to roll the salmon into a strudel log until the phyllo is gone. Fold ends under. Carefully place the strudel on parchment lined baking tray. Refrigerate for at least half an hour. Preheat oven to 400°C. Bake the strudel for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cut off ends of strudel, then cut into four equal slices.

White chocolate and mixed berry open strudel

Ingredients

• 4 phyllo pastry sheet • 25gm melted butter • 150 gm white chocolate • 100gm frozen berries lIcing sugar to sprinkle

Method

Pre-heat the oven at 350°C. Brush the phyllo sheets with butter and layer together in a round mould. Scatter the chocolate lengthways down the centre of the phyllo and top with mixed berries. Fold the edges in and roll up to enclose. Brush with butter and place on a baking tray. Bake for 8-10 minutes or till golden colour. Dust with icing sugar to serve.