Dough
| Ingredient | English | 1x | 2x | 3x | 4x |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 500 g (4 cups, 200-ml cup measure; use good-quality flour -- it decides the outcome) | 500 g | 1 kg | 1.5 kg | 2 kg |
| Dry yeast | 1 g (1 tsp; optional -- skip it if you can roll the layers thin) | 1 g | 2 g | 3 g | 4 g |
| Sugar | 5 g (1 tsp) | 5 g | 10 g | 15 g | 20 g |
| Salt | 12 g (1 dessert spoon, about 2 tsp) | 12 g | 24 g | 36 g | 48 g |
| Water | 300 ml (1 1/2 cups, 200-ml cup measure), lukewarm | 300 mL | 600 mL | 900 mL | 1.2 L |
Layer Brush
| Ingredient | English | 1x | 2x | 3x | 4x |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable oil | 80 ml (8 tbsp) | 80 mL | 160 mL | 240 mL | 320 mL |
| Butter | 90 g, meltedor about 1/3 cup ghee (clarified butter) | 90 g | 180 g | 270 g | 360 g |
Meat Filling
| Ingredient | English | 1x | 2x | 3x | 4x |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ground beeflamb or a beef-lamb mix works | 400 g | 400 g | 800 g | 1.2 kg | 1.6 kg |
| Onion | 1 large, finely choppedor about 1 1/2 tbsp onion powder | 150 g | 300 g | 450 g | 600 g |
| Black pepper | To taste | — | — | — | — |
| Salt | To taste | — | — | — | — |
Pantry swaps
| Original | Swap1 | Swap2 | Swap3 | Swap4 | Swap5 | Swap6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons cake flour (not advised for cookies or quick breads) | 1 cup self-rising flour (omit baking powder and salt from recipe). Reader suggestion: 5/8 cup potato flour | 1-1/4 cups rye flour or coarsely ground whole-grain flour | 1 cup cornmeal | ||
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.25 | 1 | ||
| Dry yeast | 1 package (1/4 ounce) or 1 scant tablespoon active dried yeast | |||||
| — | — | |||||
| Sugar | 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar | 1-3/4 cups confectioners' sugar (makes baked goods less crisp) | 1 cup superfine sugar | |||
| 1 | 1 | 1.75 | 1 | |||
| Butter | 1 cup margarine | 1 cup shortening plus 1/2 teaspoon salt | 7/8 cup vegetable oil plus 1/2 teaspoon salt | 1 cup shortening | 7/8 cup vegetable oil | Ghee |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.875 | 1 | 0.875 | 0.833 |
| Onion | 1 tablespoon dried minced onion | 1 teaspoon onion powder | 1/4 cup frozen chopped onion | Onion powder | ||
| 1 | — | — | — | 0.07 | ||
| Black pepper | Ground black pepper | |||||
| 1 | 0.75 |
Method
Dough and layers
- Put the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour the yeast, sugar, and lukewarm water into the well – the water must be warm, neither hot nor cold. Sprinkle the salt around the edge of the flour. Knead until the dough is smooth, about 10 minutes of real kneading; the dough should look baby-smooth. Under-kneaded dough tears later.
- Cover the bowl and rest the dough for 15 minutes.
- Mix the vegetable oil and melted butter for brushing.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (the creator weighed hers at about 67 g each) and roll each into a tight, smooth ball.
- Roll each ball out to a 13 x 13 cm square on a lightly floured surface. Brush each square with the oil-butter mix and stack them, brushing between the layers; work the drips that escape the edges back into the dough as you go.
- Cover the stack airtight and rest for 20 minutes.
- Stretch the whole stack out very thin, as in the video. If the room is cold the butter stiffens: warm the oven briefly and hold the dough near it for about 3 minutes before stretching.
Meat filling
- While the dough rests, saute the ground beef with the finely chopped onion until browned. Season with black pepper and salt. That is the whole filling.
Shape and bake
- Spoon the filling onto the stretched dough and shape the boreks as in the video: portion the sheet into pieces, roll each piece around the filling into a small rustic roll, twisting and pinching the ends to seal. Arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake in a preheated 190 C (375 F) fan oven until deep golden, the color of pomegranate seeds.
Notes
Servings: 12 (one borek per serving). Per serving: 351 kcal, 10 g protein, 33 g carbs, 19 g fat, 1 g fiber. Macros are estimates summed from USDA per-100 g values (all-purpose flour, 80/20 ground beef, butter, vegetable oil, onion); the creator does not state macros. Fiber is mostly from the flour and onion; black pepper and the optional walnuts are negligible and excluded.
Quantities: exact from the creator’s video description (Turkish, translated). The creator’s cup measure (“su bardagi”) is 200 ml; the cup conversions in the table use that. The yeast is optional: she skipped it because she rolls the layers very thin; add it if you cannot roll thin, otherwise the baked pastry comes out hard. The shaping step (“shape like the video”) was confirmed from video frames: the stretched stack is portioned, filled, and twisted into small rustic rolls.
Variations from the creator’s own batch: she added a handful of walnuts to the meat and made half of the batch with a mild melting cheese filling (no quantity given, so it is not in the table).
Source: Chefburcinarda, “Citir Borek” (Facebook reel). https://www.facebook.com/reel/1769388847640028
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