"CRISCO" BOREK

This börek is called “Sana” borek. It was named after a brand of margarine in Turkey in 1970’s because it was the only margarine that gave it the crispiness. When we moved to Canada, the only type of margarine that worked for this recepie was Crisco. So you can call it Crisco Börek.

The nice thing about this pastry is that it freezes well. One of the tricks I learned from my mom was to always have these ready to cook in the freezer in case of an "emergency". You make the böreks but do not glaze or cook. Put in the freezer on a cooking tray. This allows the individual börek to freze so they don't stick to each other. Once frozen, you can transfer them to a sealed container. When ready to cook, take them out of the container and place them on a cooking tray and let it defrost for a couple of hours. Then glaze and cook.


Dough:
1 cup Mazola
2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
Flour
5 tablespoons Crisco margarine (Room temperature)

Filling:

1 pound ground beef
3 medium sized onions.
Salt, black pepper, red pepper
2 table spoon Mazola or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Optional: washed, cleaned and chopped spinach (500 gr)

Glaze:
1 egg
Optional: blackened sesame seeds or regular sesame seeds or both

Prepare the Dough:

• Mix together Mazola, water, salt and flour. The dough should be soft but not stick to your hands
• Roll the dough out as big as you can and spread Crisco margarine all over it
• Cut into 8 parts leaving a little circle in the middle. It will look like a flower with pedals. See the picture.

• Then fold each “pedal” onto the middle part to make a little "bundle". See the picture

• Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge a couple of hours. It can be made a day before. This dough can also be frozen to be used later without making the boreks.

Prepare the filling:

• Stirfry ground beef, and onions together and let it cook at low heat until all the juice is gone.
• Add in salt, tomato paste, black pepper.
• If using spinich, it is the last thing that gets added and only cooked until it gets wet and shrinks.
• Cool the filling.

Borek:

• Once ready to make the börek, take a small piece of the dough and roll out to the size of a dinner plate. You will need to have lots of flour because Crisco makes it very sticky. I usually roll little piece in flour just before starting to roll it out.
• Cut dough into triangles. Usually one small piece will make 4-5 triangles.
• Put 1 tablespoon filling into each triangle and fold both ends and roll into the shape of the börek.
• Mix the egg and glaze the boreks with eggs. Sprinke with sesame seeds (optional)
• Cook at 350 degree oven until golden brown.
• Takes about 45 minutes.