Su Böreği (Water Pastry)
February 22nd, 2006
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:
- 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
- Divide into 10 balls, 2 of which should be bigger than the rest
- While the dough is resting, crumble the feta cheese and mix with finely chopped parsely
- 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
- In the mean time, put water (more than a gallon) some salt and olive oil to boil in a big pot.
- When you are done rolling the small balls, take a big one, roll it flat and lay it on the greased round baking pan
- 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
- 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
- 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!
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February 24th, 2006 at 6:59 am
It looks delicious :)
February 24th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Fethiye, I’ve been thinking about buying that machine lately..If you try it for making yufka please let us know..( so I can make a space for it in my kitchen )
February 24th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Hi Fethiye!
This is just wonderful! I’d love to try su böreği at home.
Is this dough the same as yufka?
And the rolling pin, i’m looking at it in the last photo (2-3 cm diameter i guess?)… It seems even thinner than the ones used in Italy, in Emilia-Romagna, to roll pasta. How long is it?
Thanks to you and to you aunt for this recipe.
February 24th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Thanks Melissa!
Betul, I will definitely post about my pasta roller use for making yufka. Let’s see how it turns out! :)
Hi Marcela! Nice to see you again. The dough is different than yufka as yufka has no eggs in it. This one has to have eggs, otherwise it would not take boiling. Good that you reminded me, I mean to write more about the rolling pin! Our rolling pins (oklava) are usually around 2cm in diameter and in various lengths. The one I have is 50cms. I will post its pics tomorrow.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:25 am
Thanks, i’m looking forward to see your post! I’m also interested in the use of pasta machine naturally. :D
But i’m curious about the technique to roll it by hand. The rolled dough should be round, so I guess you turn it around?
February 25th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Marcela, I wish I could bribe my husband to take a movie when I am rolling the dough so I can post here. Maybe I will mount the camera on the tripod once, but let’s see when my next borek experience will be! Basically, as you said, in order to achieve a round dough you have to keep turning it between rollings/pressings. I can not get it all the way round all the time, but usually that is not a problem. As long as a common thinness is achieved when rolling it you should be fine.
February 26th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Do you think we can bribe your husband with some sweets? Maybe alfajores? :D
I think i’ve get the idea though. Is basically the same as rolling pasta i guess.
I should show you some links, where you can also see the italian rolling pins used specifically in Emilia-Romagna i was telling you before. Here and here
February 28th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Marcela, I am sure he can be bribed with sweets! I just looked at what the alfajores are and found many recipes for those, too. Do you have one that you can suggest me?
Thank you for the rolling pin links. They are similar in diameter as the professional baklava rollers would use in Turkey.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
Do you found dulce de leche where you live? :)
I use to bake a couple of recipes of alfajores. This one is my favorite. And on this one i’m still making some changes, but it’s good…
I thought baklava dough was streched mostly by hand! Didn’t know about the rolling pins… Every day one can learn something. :)
February 28th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Marcela, I didn’t know you wrote them in English as well. Thanks, I will take a look into it again.
I think I made dulce de leche once — when I left the milk on the stove too long. Remember Indira’s recipe that needed to boil down the milk to make a sweet? I could not find it on her site now, but I made that one and assume it is similar. If not, there are so many recipes on the internet for it, right? I honestly didn’t check any stores to see if they sell it here.
Rolling baklava that thin is an art in my mind!
February 28th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
If there’s something unclear let me know please. I wrote the recipes in my bad english, one of them was checked and corrected by a dear friend of mine… The other is in a rough state :D
Do you mean pala kova? Is in fact similar to dulce de leche… Maybe dulce de leche is just more “creamy”. I’ve also posted the recipe, but is not translated. Anyway the proportions are 1 liter milk-200g sugar. And a lot of patience. :)
March 2nd, 2006 at 12:15 pm
This looks delicious! I don’t know about rolling the dough myself, though; I tend to have a VERY heavy hand with pastry. Of course, practice makes perfect … I love how your photograph captures the layers in the dough. Lovely!
March 13th, 2006 at 8:31 am
I’d say that for someone starting out with using an oklava (the Turkish thin rolling pin), this is an excellent recipe to start with. The dough is not as delicate as that for yufka; I’d compare it more to a noodle dough. Therefore it’s much more durable; it’s also not rolled quite so thin as yufka. So you have a much better chance of having a good result, and you won’t be frustrated. I even did it once with a regular western rolling pin, though I can’t really recommend it…I really wanted su böreği, I guess! ;)
March 14th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Marcela, I thought I replied your comment! Sorry for it taking me too long to get back to you. yes, I meant pala kova, and I am actually planning on making it in slow cooker to see how it turns out :) Will let you know.
Tania, thank you for your commen on the photo. And as you said, rolling the dough takes practice and I am nowhere close to being a perfect dough roller ;)
Bob, you are right about this dough’s durability but it also is more elastic, making it a bit harder to roll. How come you didn’t go out and buy some su böreği but made it yourself at home? :)
April 25th, 2006 at 8:00 am
Hello! My name is Francesca and I am happy to find finally some blogs on turkish food, so I can learn more about it!
I tried the su boregi, too (used the recipe in the book of Algar). It was fun to look for an Oklava. Many Italians use it in a similar way. I was very happy with the result but from looking at your picture I understood that I cut it in the wrong way, that would be the way we cut savory cakes. In Liguria (a province in Italy) they are very common, most famous beeing torta pasqualina, where there are many layers of pastry (originally 33), with a savory filling…not too different than the turkish way.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Francesca, now that you mentioned, I have never seen su boregi or any other borek cut in wedges (as in the case in torta pasqulaina) for some reason. Good catch, I have never realized this. Will be posting more Turkish recipes.
February 24th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I just want to thank you for the recipe! I made it this past weekend, using spinach instead of parsley but otherwise sticking closely to your directions. It came out very well!
March 26th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Thank you so much for posting this recipe.
I was looking for this dough for years.
My grandma from Bulgaria used to make a similar dish, without parsley
she called it Calzonnes !
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:01 am
It looks great.
I myself have learnt how to make su boregi from my mother-in-law. The recipe just looks the same but the diffrence is how cook it.. we actually cook it on top of oven so that way, says my mother-in-law it comes out to be more like not-crunchy.. And this way of cooking it is a bit more difficult because you have to turn the whole borek at one time when one side is cooked and check the bottom side frequintly so it does not get burnt.
Great job..
June 13th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Oh my goodness! I have been looking everywhere for this recipe. Su boregi is my favorite Turkish food by far, and my husband, Cem, told me I would not be able to make it myself. Ha! Well, I’m pretty handy in the kitchen, so I’m not easily intimidated by difficult recipes, but my experience with rolling pins is limited, to say the least - any news on the pasta machine outcome?