Lasagna Borek Recipe
Borek is one the most popular and basic dishes of Turkish cuisine. It's basically a layered savory pastry with several kind of filling options. It's made with yufka, a thicker wheat phyllo dough. There are lots of types of borek in Turkish cuisine. Some are different in texture, some in filling, some in method and some in shape. Su boregi, which means water borek is different in texture and method. To make su boregi, the yufkas are boiled before baked. So, it has a softer texture than most of the other types of boreks. The yufka of the su boregi is also a little bit thicker than normal yufka. So, in a way ir resembles to lasagna, not in terms of taste of course.
But the appearance reminds it. So there is a fake borek recipe made with lasagna leaves in Turkey. Generally it tastes more like lasagna than borek. But in my recipe I do a few things to make it more like borek.
The first thing I do is to rinse the lasagna leaves after cooking them. Because we just need the pulp, not the taste and smell of it. The second thing I do to suppress the taste and smell is to use plenty of ingredients for sauce and mortar. In this way, while eating it, doughy texture of the lasagna is felt but in the flavor the sauce and cheese is dominant. Yeah, of course, it's not 100% su boregi, but it's getting close.
Enjoy the recipe ...
Ingredients
- 16 ready to use lasagna leaves,
- 400 g curd cheese, cottage cheese or crumbled white cheese,
- 1 handful of chopped parsley,
- 1 cup of milk,
- 2 tbsps butter,
- 1/4 cup oil
- 2 eggs.
Preparation
- Boil the water in a large saucepan, add the lasagna leaves and cook until tender (stir occasionally to prevent them to stick to each other),
- Melt the butter in a saucepan while the lasagna leaves cook,
- Take it from the stove, add milk and oil and stir,
- Add the eggs and beat them quickly,
- Combine the cheese and parsley together in a separate bowl,
- Strain the softened lasagna leaves, add warm water and stir and strain again,
- Place 4 sheets of lasagna into a 20 * 26 cm baking dish,
- Pour over some sauce,
- Spread one-third of cheese mortar,
- Spread 4 more lasagna leaves and spread the sauce over it,
- Spread half of the remaining cheese mortar,
- Place 4 sheets of lasagna and spread the sauce,
- Spread the remaining cheese,
- Place the remaining 4 lasagna leaves over the remaining sauce,
- Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C degrees until the desired amount of browning.
Enjoy...