White Cheese and Spinach Borek made with Spring Roll Pastry

tasteexperimenta

Mar 4, 2024

A few days ago, I experimented with making traditional Turkish tray borek using spring roll wrappers, typically used for making lumpia. Traditionally, boreks are made with thin, round hand-rolled dough called 'yufka'. You can look at the picture below to see how it looks.

Unfortunately, finding fresh yufka in the Netherlands has been a challenge. Packaged yufka dough is available in some Turkish markets, but they are often too thick and have a long shelf life.

Long story short, I've been experimenting with various recipes using yufka-like products.

Let's experimenta... ;)

First Ingredients:

1 pack of spring roll pastry (contains 40 sheets, but I used 32 for my pastry; adjust based on your oven mold size)
300 gr spinach
300 gr white cheese or feta
1 handful of grated cheese

Liquid Filling:

1 glass of milk
1/2 glass of olive oil
2 eggs (reserve 1 egg yolk for brushing the pastry)

Optional:

Sesame seeds
Black cumin

Instructions:

Cook the spinach in a pan with a little olive oil for a few minutes. Mix it with mashed white cheese/feta using a fork. Add grated cheese to the mixture and combine well.

In another bowl, whisk together 1 glass of milk, 1/2 glass of olive oil, 1 egg, and the white of the second egg.
This liquid mixture will moisten and soften the dough while adding flavor to the borek.
Place two spring roll sheets side by side, overlapping by 1 cm. Brush the liquid mixture over them evenly. Layer two more sheets on top in the same manner and spread the liquid mixture.
Spread the cheese and spinach filling along the length of the sheets, leaving a 1.5 cm diameter. Roll the sheets into a log and place it in the middle of a round baking tray.