Su Böreği with Minced Meat

I believe I am not the only person who doesn’t like mass-marketed böreks made with ready-made phyllo…

For me, börek carries a traditional value packed with memories from the past when my late dear mother used to show up with an oven tray filled with freshly baked golden-crusted börek and the whole family would unite around the dinner table for its savory taste and mouth-watering smell. A tradition that my wife keeps alive now…

Among dozens of varieties of börek, su böreği, which literally means “water börek” because of its recipe given below, is one of the most popular forms.

When someone mentions su böreği; although the first thing that comes into my mind is hand-made su böreği with cheese, whose best form can be eaten at Beyti, a years-old meat restaurant in Istanbul, su böreği with kıyma is another recipe that has a special place in my heart!

Made by my dear sister-in-law Figen according to my dear friend Hilal Tayfun’s (@patliycannn) recipe, the one in the picture delighted our palates at one warm Sunday breakfast. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

In addition to 200 grams of butter

For filling

• 500 grams of minced beef
• 1 bunch of Italian parsley
• 1 tablespoon of oil (sunflower and the like)
• Salt
• Black pepper

For dough

• 6 eggs
• Enough flour for the desired consistency
• 2 tablespoons of oil (sunflower and the like)
• Salt

Instructions

• For dough, mix eggs, oil and salt in a bowl. Knead it adding flour gradually until its consistency becomes a bit thicker than that of poğaça’s (pogacha) dough.
• Split dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll the pieces and cover them with a piece of moist cloth.
• Brown minced meat in oil, and add in salt and black pepper. Finely chop Italian parsley and set it aside.
• Roll out the dough pieces on a flour-sprinkled surface until each gets as thin as possible. While stacking them up, you can also put baking paper on top of every phyllo so that they won’t stick together.
• Fill a cooking pot with hot water and throw in some salt. Get another pot and fill it with cold water.
• Melt butter however you want, and slightly grease an oven tray with it.
• Place a rolled-out phyllo in oven tray and grease it too with some butter.
• Take another phyllo and soak it in hot water for 30 seconds. Transfer it into the pot filled with cold water with the help of a skimmer spoon. Take it out of the pot and gently drain it with your hands. Place it over the first piece in the over tray giving it a wrinkled look. Repeat this until the sixth layer is achieved. The key point here is that you should make sure the cold water doesn’t get warm because of the heat of the phyllo sheets. Otherwise, phyllo sheets will be torn apart.
• Spread minced meat and chopped Italian parsley over the sixth phyllo.
• Place the seventh phyllo raw like the first piece. Brush it with butter.
• Repeat this process of blanching, filling and greasing until done with every piece. To maintain a fine quality of texture, make sure you refresh the hot water in case it cools down.
• After greasing the top layer with butter, slash the surface a few times, and place the tray into a 180 degrees preheated oven.

Bon appétit, my dear friends!