December

National Food Day - Su Böreği (Water Pastry)

As strange as it may sound, “water pastry” could be a literal translation for this dish’s name. But it really does not capture the meaning quite well. One can think of this dish as hand rolled lasagna (boiled, hence the name “water”) layered with oil and cheese + parsley mix. Maybe the name “Turkish lasagna” would make more sense.
At home this recipe is my aunt’s specialty; she rolls and cooks the dough, and later bakes it. I finally got the recipe from her as well as some directions on how to make it. In order to even try making this recipe you need to know how to roll the dough thin — when I mean thin, I mean about 1 - 2mm thin. In Turkey it is customery to use straight rolling pins; similar to the ones known as Frech rolling pin, but way thinner. As you roll the dough around the pin, you push down on the dough and roll at the same time, moving your hands to travel from the mid section of the though to the sides. This was you will achieve thin dough. It is considered to be a hard/time consuming dishes in our cuisine, and I totally agree on the time consuming part. But, it is well worth it!
Even though I can roll the dough myself for years now, next time I make any kind of borek (you might want to familiarize yourself with this word as I tend to make a lot of borek) I am thinking about using a pasta machine to roll the dough to see how technology would help this process!
Now, if you are ready for a culinary challenge, here is the recipe for Su Boregi:

Ingredients:
(for 32cm / 12.5inch round baking pan)
dough:
• 4 eggs
• 2.5 cups flour (could be a bit more, depending on the flour you use)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• about 1/3 cup water
for rolling:
• 1/2 cup flour and starch, each. Mixed
filling:
• 300 gr (10oz) crumbled feta cheese (I prefer Turkish or Bulgarian)
• a bunch of parsely
to brush with:
• 1/3 cup melted butter + 1/3 cup olive oil
 

How to make it:
1. Mix the flour and salt, make a well and crack the eggs in the middle. By adding a bit of water, knead the dough well and make a stiff but pliable dough
2. Divide into 10 balls, 2 of which should be bigger than the rest
3. While the dough is resting, crumble the feta cheese and mix with finely chopped parsely
4. Sprinkle your workplace with flour + starch mix, take a small dough and roll it as thin as you can. Even though one can argue that you should not have any cuts in the rolled dough, I would not lose sleep over it. At the end of the day they will be used as layers and who cares if there is a thorn piece of rolled dough
5. In the mean time, put water (more than a gallon) some salt and olive oil to boil in a big pot.
6. When you are done rolling the small balls, take a big one, roll it flat and lay it on the greased round baking pan
7. Before cooking the dough in boiling water, make sure to have another big bowl of very cold water next to it. And you should have a strainer to let it drip when it comes out of this hot + cold bath
8. Take one of the rolled doughs and dump into boiling water, cook it between 30 secs to 1 min, and pull out of hot water, transfer into cold one. When it is completely cooled, take it out of there to the strainer. You are welcome to squeeze the dough if you wish — mine didn’t tear a bit. Transfer it into the round baking dish, brush with the oil mix and do the same with the next rolled dough. After two, three doughs you should also consider putting some of the filling. In my case I ended up having 3 layers of fillings
9. The last big one again goes on top without boiling. Brush it with the rest of the oil (or get more olive oil) and bake in a preheated oven at 350F (170C) for about 40 - 50 mins, until somehow brown at top
Serve with a nice salad and enjoy your dinner!