Chickpeas Börek Recipe
Chickpea börek or originally nohutlu börek is a recipe from Bergama cuisine. Bergama is a beautiful town located in the west coast of Turkey. It may sound a little strange when first heard, but if you give it a try, you'll be happy not to be biased.
One of the biggest features of the recipe is that it is vegan. It does not contain eggs or dairy products. This is an extremely rare feature for Turkish börek recipes. Although it is possible to make them vegan by using plant based milk or water instead of milk in their sauce and applying molasses mixed with water instead of egg yolk on top, but there are not many böreks whose standard recipe is vegan. Therefore, if you are vegan or allergic to eggs or milk, I recommend adding this recipe to your favorites.
Even if you deviate from the original recipe, if you cannot use chickpeas, you can also diversify it by using vegetables such as potatoes or spinach instead.
Chickpea börek has a nice dough that expands very easily. If you know how to use a rolling pin, you don't encounter any problems. The most important thing you should pay attention to while rolling them is to prevent others from drying on top while rolling one. If they are dry, a cracked appearance occurs when rolling them, and this may cause tears in places as the dough expands.
Regarding the filling, make sure that the chickpeas are boiled to soften completely. Since chickpeas do not contain water, they do not continue to cook after they enter in the börek, on the contrary, they dry. For this reason, they must have absorbed enough water before entering the börek. Another important point I want to underline is roasting the onion. I have received thousands of user photos for many different recipes so far. There are two major mistakes I observe in these photographs that make the food less appetizing.
The first of these is that the pastries are cooked too much, too much that they almost burn. Normally, the cookies that should be white are brown, and the brownies, which should be brown, are baked until they turn black. It is worth noting that the color change is not the only indicator that something is cooked, in some cases the color change is an indicator of burning rather than cooking. Another thing is the uncooked, huge onions in the main dishes. When your food is cooked, no onions should be seen in it. There are two ways to achieve this. The first is to chop the onions small, and the second is to roast them well. That's applied to chickpea börek as well.
Enjoy ...
Ingredients
For dough;
- 1 cup of luke warm water,
- 2.5 cups flour,
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil,
- 1 tablespoon of any kind of vinegar,
- 1 teaspoon of salt.
For the filling;
- 500 g of boiled chickpeas,
- 1 onion,
- 4 tablespoons of olive oil,
- 1 handful of chopped parsley,
- 1 teaspoon of chili pepper,
- 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper,
- 1/4 teaspoon of cumin,
- Salt.
For topping;
- Olive oil.
Preparation
- For the dough, mix water, olive oil, vinegar and salt in a bowl,
- Add the flour little by little and knead until you have an elastic dough that does not stick to the hand,
- Cover it and rest for 10 minutes,
- In the meantime, chop the onion finely and stir fry itin a pan with olive oil until softens,
- Crush the chickpeas with a fork or pulse in a food processor until they become grainy,
- Add the chickpeas to the roasted onions,
- Add the parsley, spices and salt, mix and remove from heat,
- Knead the dough again and divide it into 8 equal parts,
- Take one of the pieces and cover the rest so that they do not dry out,
- Roll the piece you took with rolling pin on the counter sprinkled with cornstarch,
- Pour olive oil on it with the tip of a spoon and brush,
- Spread one eighth of the chickpea mixture over it,
- Roll up from the edge,
- Place the roll on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper lengthwise,
- Roll out and prepare the remaining dough pieces in the same way and arrange it on the tray with a gap between them,
- Lubricate the them with olive oil,
- Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees until the top is lightly browned.
Enjoy your meal...