Kırma Böreğı, not as well known as other böreks, is what I call Scrunch Börek. It is super simple to make and there are absolutely no rules to follow. If you break the pastry it really doesn’t matter. The messier you get it, the better it works. It’s virtually impossible to go wrong with this börek. I love the untidy factor.
All round, it is a winner for me, being not the most fastidious person on the planet!
Apart from the ease of making this, it is a super tasty börek and cooks very quickly. It is very fast to prepare and you can have it on the table 45 minutes after you first pull the pastry out of the fridge, ready to start the preparations.
I played around with the original recipe that I found on You Tube and I have a few points I would like to mention.
- I added some spring greens after washing and steaming them. That was a mistake. I personally would not recommend adding greens again. When you get to the point of slicing this borek raw, the greens cause you to tear the pastry and makes the job rather difficult.
- If you still want to add greens, I would go no further than just adding a tablespoon of finely chopped parsley or dill to each yufka sheet with cheese and not more.
- The plain cheese borek with a sprinkling of chili flakes (pul biber) and the creamy sauce seemed to taste best of all in any case.
- I cooked my börek in a pizza pan which I use a lot. However, this börek, with its heavy sauce needs a convection oven or an element above it, burning down. I had to turn my Scrunch Börek over in the pizza oven. The sauce caused all the pieces to meld together and they had to be cut apart. The look is not as effective and I believe it generally cooks better in a proper oven with above and below elements.
- This börek may look like a lot but I can tell you, it will be wolfed down in minutes. It is one of the most delicious for the minimal amount of work required.
- 5 sheets yufka
- ½ kg ricotta / lor peyniri
- 1 cup very finely chopped parsley if desired
- Salt and pul biber (chilli flakes)
- 500g yogurt
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- Oil for greasing tray
- Break the eggs into a bowl, reserving one egg yolk in a separate bowl
- Mix the 1 egg and 1 egg white with the yogurt until well combined
- Combine in another bowl the cheese, salt, pul biber and parsley if desired
- Open up a yufka sheet and spread generously the yogurt sauce on half the sheet
- Sprinkle the cheese mixture over the yufka half with sauce
- Fold the dry half of the yufka sheet over and gently pat it onto the wet half
- Gently bunch it together until it is roughly 8cm wide as in the picture
- Using a knife or pizza cutter, slice it into rough squares
- Place on a very well greased baking tray, do not use a silicone mat for this as you need the oil to cook the bottom of the pastry
- Repeat with each yufka sheet
- With the remaining sauce, beat in the last egg yolk and add 1 Tbsp oil
- Brush the sauce over the scrunched boreks on the tray until all is used up
- Preheat the oven to 180C
- The boreks need to rest in the sauce for minimum 10 minutes
- Bake in the oven until golden which may take 15 to 25 minutes.
Hoping you enjoy this different version of a börek. Afiyet Olsun!
Thanks for this, I toil over borek whenever I make it and the phyllo/yufka, as you refer to it, is always broken or torn when I open the package. I will try your way.
I hope it will work for you. This is yufka, the thicker version as compared to phylly the paper thin pastry, known more famously for baklava etc. It is nice to know that messy is best! I also find toil over it. The fresh yufka is definitely much easier to work with, but for this recipe, the packaged yufka is absolutely fine.
although my mother made her own yufka (thick and thin) expertly, i have a fear of dough, even the packaged ones. last time i bought it, it went bad because i couldn’t convince myself to use it, but i think i can handle this. she used to make something similar to this using farmer’s cheese and a little spinach, but she would arrange it in a coil. my mom was known for her kobete though, with a million crisp layers. it was the best!
Hi Jennifer, I do hope you drop your ‘yufka fears’ and go for it with this one, as it really is a great one to start with. No high expectations. Mess is best! Please let me know how you get on. As the weather gets warmer, I am sure you know that the yufka has a shorter life and should be used quicker. I keep my leftover yufka from the pack wrapped in a clean, damp tea towel in the fridge and it keeps fresh a bit longer than otherwise.