Burek, Bourek, Boereg, and Borekas

Published on Thursday, April 19, 2007, by Sarah Perry / Edit Post

rworange is in love with Turkish burek (sigara boregi). It’s a deep-fried, cigar-shaped pastry made of thin layers of crackly dough called yufka, wrapped around a mixture of oozy feta cheese and fresh parsley. But burek is not just a Turkish item. Striver is a fan of Albanian bourek, filled with meat, cheese, or pumpkin. It’s heavier than the Turkish variety, and it’s baked, not fried. louweezy likes the Greek version, called tiropita—it’s like spanakopita, minus the spinach. Israeli borekas are sometimes filled with potato, the personal favorite of PotatoPuff. You can sometimes find them prepackaged and frozen under the brand name Sabra. Armenians make boereg with tissue-thin layers of dough, and there are Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian versions. Why is this dish found all around the Mediterranean? Its origins can be traced to the Ottoman Empire, whose cuisine influenced the whole region.

Try some if you can find some. “I’ll drive for hours for a good burek. I’ve been known to carry them back as my carry-on luggage when I go to Chicago,” says venera. “They are that damn good.”

Board Links: Mmmmm … Turkish borek !!! Where have you been all my life?

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  • I just returned from Algeria, where I had a delicious variant of bourek with a fried egg, cheese and ground meat in a very crunchy deep-fried exterior shell and eaten with harissa, although this was called a brik. Interesting, they make some sort of distinction there between briks and boureks, although I wasn't able to figure out what it is.

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  • Sigare boregi is a variation of the regular borek. In Turkey you find both versions. The cigar version is deep fried, the other version is baked.
    If you want to buy ready-made triangles of dough to make it at home, you can find them at www.tulumba.com.

  • Wonder if these are related to a bierock -- stuffed pastry common in the Midwest, brought with Russian German immigrants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bierock)? Somehow related to pierogies? After all, just a hop, skip, etc. to Russia from Turkey.

  • I lived in Turkey for a couple years and borek is one of my favorite dishes.

    Luckily its one of the Turkish dishes that is not difficult to make at home. I've never seen yufka for sale in the US but phyllo dough is available in any grocery store and is a suitable replacement. Triangles of phyllo are filled with feta and parsley, brushed with butter, tightly rolled, and deep fried.

    It's not hard...+READ

    I lived in Turkey for a couple years and borek is one of my favorite dishes.

    Luckily its one of the Turkish dishes that is not difficult to make at home. I've never seen yufka for sale in the US but phyllo dough is available in any grocery store and is a suitable replacement. Triangles of phyllo are filled with feta and parsley, brushed with butter, tightly rolled, and deep fried.

    It's not hard to get right but it is somewhat time consuming and is much easier when you have a helper. I make it on special occasions.-COLLAPSE