This Beloved Savory Mediterranean Pastry Is a Spiraled Delight

Throughout numerous visits to Türkiye, our Birmingham, Alabama–based test kitchen colleague Renu Dhar was never far from borek, a category of Mediterranean pastries shaped from a thin dough that’s filled and then baked, fried, boiled, or steamed. Every morning, the aroma of fresh, savory, filled pastry wafted down the wandering old town streets of Istanbul. “I fell in love with eating all kinds of borek in Istanbul from cigar shaped to spirals, from fried to baked,” Renu says. She adds that the dish is a “celebration of flavors, textures, and aromas,” their crisp edges give way to tender layers, and then melting cheese, or spiced meat, or the earthy bite of herbs, all wrapped in sheets of delicate pastry. 

Inspired by her favorite Turkish borek, especially the vegetable ones, Renu has developed her own recipe. Her coiled version is stuffed with a carrot, mushroom, and feta cheese filling. “This is a walk down memory lane with a few changes and in no way a traditional recipe,” she notes. Making these savory carrot borek is a fairly straightforward process: Cook and assemble the filling; spread it atop layered sheets of the dough; roll into cylinders to create one large spiral, then brush with an egg mixture before baking until golden and crisp. Read on to learn more about borek and for the key techniques you’ll need to make this recipe.

All About Borek

Boreks—or borags, beregs, boregs, boeregs (they’re all pronounced the same)—are buttery, crisp, multilayered pastry hand pies filled with cheese, greens, vegetables, meat, or some combination thereof. They can be triangle-shaped, rolled and coiled, or even baked in a pan and then cut into squares. They’re beloved in Türkiye but are equally prized throughout the countries that were once a part of the Ottoman Empire, including Armenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. 

The dough typically used in most styles of Turkish borek is yufka—thin, wide sheets of pastry that are often purchased at yufkacı, shops primarily dedicated to the pastry that can be found in nearly every Turkish neighborhood. The sheets are typically rolled out into thin sheets. Think of them as a more rustic pastry dough that sits midway between a pasta and phyllo in thickness and heft. To replicate this traditional dough, Renu turned to phyllo, which is usually thinner and shorter than yufka but similar in flavor and easier to find in the US. 

Creating the Tangy Carrot Filling

For the borek filling, Renu pairs sweet carrots with earthy sun-dried tomatoes and savory, woodsy mushrooms for a hearty, robust filling. The vegetables are first sautéed until tender (but not browned) before tangy feta cheese, fresh herbs like dill, parsley, and/or mint, chopped green olives, walnuts, a dash of red pepper flakes, and an egg are folded in. The egg binds all the ingredients together into a cohesive mixture. To avoid a gloppy, melty mess, make sure the cooked vegetables are cooled down to room temperature before folding the remaining ingredients in. 

The carrots not only bring sweetness to the filling, when shredded they also bring a welcome bit of crunch to this borek. Renu recommends using freshly shredded carrots rather than preshredded store-bought carrots, as the latter can often be dried out and lack fresh flavor. You can shred the carrots on the large holes of a box grater or by using the shredding disk attachment of a food processor. 

Tips for Handling the Phyllo Dough

Assembling borek is relatively easy, but working with delicate flaky phyllo dough without tearing it can be a bit of a challenge, so Renu has a few tips and guidelines for working with the pastry to gaurantee your borek holds together and stays crisp. 

1. Keep it frozen as long as possible. Since the phyllo turns brittle and dried out if left at refrigerator temperature for more than a day or two, keep it frozen for as long as possible. When you want to use it, plan ahead, as you’ll want to transfer it to the fridge for at least eight hours or leave it at room temperature for about four hours to thaw. If you thaw the pastry in the fridge, pull it out and let it sit covered at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before working with it to prevent breakage when you’re assembling the borek. Since most phyllo is sold in one-pound packages, you can take what you need (plus a few extra sheets in case one or two tear beyond repair), gently re-roll the remainder, wrap the roll in plastic, place it in a zipper-lock bag, and refreeze for up to two weeks.

2. Keep it covered while working. When layering the phyllo and filling and coiling each borek, keep the stack of unused sheets covered with a piece of parchment or wax paper weighed down by a dry kitchen towel (do not use a damp towel, despite what some recipes recommend as this will cause the pastry to get soggy).

3. Don’t sweat the small tears. Finally, keep in mind that minor tears or cracks won’t be noticeable once the borek is rolled up, curled, and assembled, especially if they end up on the inside, so don’t worry too much as you work with it. If you do end up with a few minor tears along the way, try to gently adjust the pastry so an unbroken piece is layered on top.

Finishing the Borek

Once the spiral’s complete, you’ll brush it with the remaining egg and milk mixture, taking special care to coat the top and bottom as well as the seams where the cylinders meet in the coil. It’s then sprinkled with seeds—Renu loves using aromatic everything bagel seasoning, but plain sesame seeds are also a great option—and slid on the baking sheet into the oven. Thirty minutes later, the börek is deeply golden brown and crispy-edged, and that familiar aroma is in the air. All that’s left is to cut yourself a slice and enjoy it with a cup of çay, Turkish tea.

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