Börek – Turkish Pasties

stormylee's Note:

Delicious savoury pasties with a Turkish twist! Great as a snack, a side for soups or salads or as a small meal on their own! There are two filling options, each makes enough for 8 pasties. The dough recipe is for 16 pasties, so if you want to make just e.g. 8 feta pasties, cut the dough recipe in half. Use the amount of flour listed only as a guideline as the amount of gluten will vary. You can use dried yeast instead of fresh if you prefer, just adjust the temperature of the dough accordingly and add the yeast with the flour. Recipe adapted from Maku magazine.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 16 pasties

Dough (for 16 pasties)

• 100 g butter
• 200 ml milk , at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 20 g fresh yeast
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites (save the yolks for brushing the pasties!)
• 1000 ml all-purpose flour

Feta cheese filling (for 8 pasties)

• 1 small onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 200 g feta cheese
• 1 egg
• 100 ml chopped fresh parsley
• 50 ml chopped fresh dill
• 50 ml plain yogurt
• ½ teaspoon salt
• black pepper

Ground beef filling (for 8 pasties)

• 300 g ground beef
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 100 ml chopped fresh parsley
• ½ tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 -2 teaspoon chili paste
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground paprika
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• ½-1 teaspoon salt
• black pepper
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. To make dough: Melt butter. Add milk, sugar and salt. Check the temperature (it should be 35-37 C) and crumble yeast into the mixture. Add eggs and egg whites, stir. Gradually add flour; knead the dough for about five minutes or until it is smooth and elastic and starts to pull away from the edges of the bowl. Cover and let rise for 30-60 minutes.
2. To make cheese filling: Finely chop onion and garlic. Heat oil in a pan and cook onion and garlic until softened. Let cool. Crumble feta in a bowl with a fork and mix all ingredients together into a paste.
3. To make ground beef filling: Finely chop onion and garlic. Heat oil in a pan and cook onion, garlic and ground beef until browned. Add all remaining ingredients except for egg. Check the taste: the filling should taste fairly strong and salty. Let cool and finally mix in egg.
4. Preheat oven to 225°C Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Oil the baking board and turn the dough on it. Divide the dough in half and cut each half into 8 pieces.
5. Roll each piece out into an oval about ½ cm thick. Divide the fillings between the 16 ovals. Turn a few centimetres of the dough on top of the filling on each side and pinch the ends together tightly, so you have a boat-shaped pasty. (You can bring the sides quite close together, as the pasties "open" a bit as they bake). Carefully transfer the pasties on the baking sheet. Brush the sides with egg yolk and bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
6. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Reviews

[saylaveev]

These were very tasty (well the beef at least, because that's the only one I did). Even tasty cold. The only problem I have is with the amounts. There are dry ingredients in liquid measurements. It would be really handy if stormylee would revise the recipe to state amounts in cups just to make it easier. For instance 1000ml of flour, is infact 4 1/2 cups. I took a gamble at the 20 grams of yeast, to be 1 tbsp (although it probably should have been more). Other than that, they are easy to do, not too time consuming and tasty treats for lunch at work. I have just made these a second time. Again, tasty and pretty simple. I love the dough, it would be great for pizza. I also thought this would be tasty for a change to try adding cheddar cheese before baking. Might taste good. Also both DH and I feel that a dip would make a nice addition. We tried a few things and found a dill dip to be the best so far. We're gonna keep working on it. Have just made this for a 3rd time and while we didn't do any sauce with it this time I made it with puff pastry. Definately better and faster.

[Susie D]

We loved these and both versions recieved 5 stars from one of us. I did take a shortcut and use frozen bread dough instead of making the recipe here. I made both fillings. DH prefered the ground beef. I prefered the cheese. Both were very good! I froze half of these unbaked and am hoping that on thawing & rising they will work for a busy night. Thank you for sharing your recipe! This one is a keeper!