Phun with Phyllo!

Valentines' Day isn't something that Mark or I give two rats rear-ends about when it comes to our relationship. We both hate cards (waste of natural resources), we both hate flowers (not very practical) and hate anniversaries (when you do special things for your significant other all year round, the idea of an anniversary is pretty lame). I'm trying my hardest not to launch into a rambling tirade about my dislike for holidays in general (except Halloween, of course).

There is, however, one thing that's good about the fact that millions of other chronically neglectful couples love to celebrate Valentines' Day, and that's the vast array of prix fixe meal deals offered in NYC's priciest eateries. It provides people like Mark and I the rare chance to pull out our ceaselessly ignored "nice clothes" and pretend we're rich Manhattanites for just one evening.

This year, Valentines' Day fell on a Saturday - gastronomically convenient, I'd say - and we talked about heading to a sheik new vegetarian wine bar down in the Lower East Side called Counter. Their prix fixe menu for Valentines' Day was only $50, but for some reason, at the last minute, we decided we didn't feel like going out anywhere, but instead opted to stay at home and make something special ourselves instead.

The idea came to me as I was walking down Lexington ave. after overseeing a photo shoot of a $10K custom mirror we'd just installed in some penthouse condo on 56th st. I'd stopped at the grocery store in the neighborhood and was wondering aimlessly through the unusually narrow aisles filled with 80 year old shoppers - the rent in Manhattan is so high that grocery stores shove their shelves so close together to maximize space that you can hardly fit a cart through - when my eyes locked on a particularly intriguing target: Frozen phyllo dough.

Phyllo has always been to me, much like David Bowie in Labyrinth: mystical, delicate but intimidating and strangely sexually arousing. (hah.)

"Is that a phyllo box in your basket or are you just happy to see me?"
Mesmerized by its reflection through the freezer door, I was suddenly reminded of a recipe I'd seen in my November/December 2008 issue of Vegetarian Times magazine - Mushroom, Cheese and Vegetable Strudel - that had been on my list of things to try and make for a few months. Passion overwhelmed me, I threw open the freezer door and rescued the box of flaky goodness from its frosty prison.

I got home and immediately started preparing, most importantly by popping open a bottle of the good stuff (2006 Hess Mendocino, Lake, Napa Cabernet Sauvignon - $17) and chopping up garlic, onions and red peppers. (Also chopped were a bunch of white button mushrooms, not pictured...picture too boooring.)

Chopping and sauteeing veggies.
Next, sautee up your onion, garlic and pepper on low heat with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and salt, pepper and thyme to taste. Once they all start turning a little translucent, add in your mushrooms, sautee those down and then add in your spinach at the end, turning off heat when the spinach starts to wilt. (When you overcook your veggies, you severly reduce the nutritional content! Crunchy and colorful is the way to stay.) Transfer all your vegetables into a strainer of some kind to get as much of the liquid out as you can and then put them aside in a large bowl.

Next, in a food processor (or blender, like we did, only blenders are a little more difficult for this kind of thing), combine your brick of tofu, container of tofu cream cheese and a cup of grated cheddar cheese. Blend until smooth. *NOTE: the recipe provided by Vegetarian Times is not vegan, but if you wanted it to be, you can use tofu creamcheese like we did and some kind of vegan cheese (although 99% of vegan cheeses suck). You could probably just substitute a healthy dose of nutritional yeast for the 1 cup of sharp cheddar cheese, as I think that's mainly just for taste in this case.

Creamy tofu goodness. Some would feel otherwise, I'm sure.

Combine the vegetables and the cheese sauce together, then put in the fridge to cool for about 10 minutes or so.

Oh yeah baby, mix it goood.

Next came the part of this whole recipe that freaked me out: workin' the dough. I had researched a few things about using Phyllo on the internet, just to get some good tips, and everything I'd read told me to work fast, work cold, and use lots of lube. OIL. I mean oil. Use lots of OIL.

Mark volunteered to wrangle the sheets of phyllo because I was just too intimidated, and I took the job of sheet greaser, brushing each thin layer of dough with a rosemary/garlic olive oil mixture we'd made. I did help him lay the sheets out on the baking pan so they wouldn't crinkle up on each other and get all ripped and stuck together. I'd be lying if I said that didn't happen a few times, but overall we performed well, especially for phyllo virgins.

Brusha' brusha. What up, double chin? How you hangin'?? (heh.)

Now by far the hardest part here was understanding the damn recipe and how many sheets of dough you're supposed to lay down and in what order for the top and bottom layers of this thing.

The recipe says, for bottom crust:

Cover bottom of prepared baking pan with 2 phyllo sheets, allowing sheets to overlap each other and hang off sides. Brush with garlic oil. Place 2 more phyllo sheets on top, and brush with garlic oil. Repeat 4 times, until you have a 6-layer bottom crust.

And for the top crust:

Spread Filling in crust, leaving 3-inch edge all around. Brush edges with garlic oil. Fold sides of phyllo over filling. Cover filling with 2-sheet layer of phyllo (4 sheets total), overlapping sheets in center. Brush with garlic oil. Repeat layering 2 sheets at a time until you have 4 layers (16 sheets phyllo total), brushing every second sheet with garlic oil.

Now, I'm not quite sure how we managed to figure it out, especially considering that my brain ceases to function when it encounters anything somewhat mathematical, but we did. I think what it basically breaks down into is each layer is made of two sheets of dough, brush oil between every layer of dough, use 12 sheets on the bottom crust and 16 sheets on the top crust (one box of phyllo dough has 28 sheets...look at those math skills!!). Crap, even that math doesn't make sense. Figure it out yourself.

Lay down your bottom crust, scoop in the filling, spreading it out leaving a 3-inch border of dough on all sides, then cover with top crust.

Mark glares skeptically at our lovely loaf.

Next is the most exciting step (after eating the damn thing, of course): TUCKING! I'm sure Mr. Bowie also knows a lot about that. Turns out Mark is also a master tucker, and volunteered to show me how you tuck a good phyllo crust into itself.


Tuck, tuck, tuck...smooth as the front of a tranny's unitard!
From there, take your lovely loaf, brush the top with more garlic oil (or you can make the nutmeg topping mentioned in the VegTimes recipe, but we opted to leave it out (we were getting too hungry to care), and bake it at 350 degrees in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes (+/- depending on how crappy your oven is) and....


LOAF!

Perfection! From there the rest is easy:



Cut into 2" thick slices after it cools a little, then EAT EAT EAT.

And yes...it was every bit as delicious as you would think it was.

Luckily, we ended up getting to eat at Counter several weeks later in March for a League of Humane Voters fundraising dinner, where Counter chose to donate 20% of the nights proceeds towards the LOHV. Every single thing we ate was every bit as delicious as we thought it would be. They also have a huge list of organic wine and beers to pair with your meal. By far the funniest part of the evening is that we both rode our bikes there and were the only people in attendance that night wearing t-shirts and ripped jeans.

I mean really...would you expect any less from us? Luckily for our waitress, sometimes bike riding, earth loving, punk-ass vegetarian kids are able to tip like kings.