BAKLAVA, BOREK RECIPES

For a really long time, I and my blog partner couldn't add any recipes here. I was busy with my English courses and my cake decoration classes. I was totally falling in love with cake decoration stuff. I spend most of my time with them. If you want to see some of my cake images you can click here but they are in Turkish. Minik Kus is very busy with her research that she is doing for her PhD degree. I hope we will not do this again.

Finally, I am adding some Turkish food recipes now. Today is our traditional "Kurban Bayrami". It is a religious celebration. I made them for Bayram for our guests. Enjoy!

Adopted from Ceylan
Borek recipe:
Ingredients:
For dough :

• 2 eggs (one of the egg yolks is for topping)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1\3 cups olive oil plus 1 tablespoon for topping
  
• 2\3 whole milk
• 1 1\2 teaspoon baking powder
• flour (almost 4 cups)

For filling:

• 1 packet baby spinach (chopped small pieces)
  
• 1 big chopped onion
  
• 1 pinch salt and pepper
• 1 packet blue cheese (*my contribution)
  
• 2-3 tablespoon olive oil
  

Method:
Lightly grease a round 27 cm (10 inch) cake pan with olive oil
Preheat oven 350F
1. In a large pan, cook the onion with olive oil until it turns yellow. Add the spinach, cook until spinach dies down and add the salt and pepper. You can also use beef and potatoes for filling.
2. Next, in a large bowl, add all the ingredients but with only 1 cup flour. Start kneading. It should be very sticky, add flour one cup at a time and continue kneading until dough becomes soft and not sticky. Stop adding flour.
3. Dust the work surface with some flour. Make small balls from dough and roll each ball very thin 8 inch diameter. ( or little longer and narrower)
4. Pour 2 or 3 tablespoons filling and 1 tablespoon blue cheese one side of dough and make a tight roll. Make a ring and put it in the middle of the pan. And than start wrapping the roll from middle to out.
5. Brush the Borek with the egg yolk and olive oil, bake it until brown. Serve when it is almost hot.

Baklava Recipe: (updated)
Ingredients:
For filling:

• 12 filo dough sheets
  
• 3 cups walnuts very finely chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2\3 cup unsalted melted butter
  

For syrup

• 1 1\2 cups water
  
• 2\3 cup sugar (or more sugar if you have a sweet tooth)
  
• 1 lemon zest strip
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice

Method:
Lightly butter 9-13 inch pan
Preheat oven 325F
1. In a small saucepan, mix water, sugar, lemon zest and juice and boil them properly and let it cool completely.
2. In a separate bowl, add the nuts and cinnamon, mix them well.
3. Next, in a lightly buttered pan, line the first filo sheet and brush it with butter. Tuck the overhanging parts in...and do it same thing to second and third filo sheets. Next, sprinkle nuts with spoon on the dough. And then line 3 more filo sheets as above and sprinkle nuts top of them. 2 more times do it same thing until you finish your ingredients. Remember to brush each filo sheets with butter. Brush the top of filo sheet. Finally, cut only the top 3 filo sheets diagonally across and bake until golden brown. Approximately 40 minutes.
4. When it is baked cut it all the way to the bottom using the same lines and pour the syrup on the baklava immediately. I like to eat Baklava when it is a little warm but normally it is served when it is completly cool. You can serve with extra nuts on the top, ice cream and with my favorite "Kaymak". Enjoy!

Yalanci Tavuk Gogsu (Fake Chicken Breast Pudding)

Finally, we're in foodie blogroll :) If you haven't heard about the blogroll, I strongly recommend you to visit JennDZ's blog and read this post. This blogroll's aim is helping foodies find each other on the web. Also she opened a forum, so you can visit and share your recipes with others :) I think, she did a great job. You can find this blogroll on the left hand side of our blog :)Thanks again!

Now, it is time to give a new recipe :) In Turkish cuisine, one can find plenty of desserts that are made of milk. Personally, I love this type of desserts, especially sutlac (this is another dessert, hopefully we'll give its recipe soon). The name of this dessert is Tavuk Gogsu which means, literally, chicken breast. The original of this pudding contains some chicken breast. It sounds weird, doesn't it? But it is not. Actually, you don't taste the chicken because chicken breast is cooked very well, and it is cut into very small pieces (like smashed into fibers). The originality of this pudding comes from the fiber of the chicken breast. When you try to put some pudding into your spoon, you will see the fibers. But, I cook this pudding without chicken breast which makes it fake :) (like fake manti :))

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tbs unsweetened butter
1 cup of all purpose flour
0.26 gal milk (1 lt milk)
1 1/2 cups of sugar

Method:

Put the butter into a pan and melt it. Then pour the flour into pan and roast it until its color changes to yellowish-brownish color. Then add sugar and mix it. Begin to add some milk while stirring the mixture with a hand mixer. Do not add the entire milk at the same time, try to pour little milk each time. Also, you need to stir it all the time. If not, the mixture will get lumpy. After you add the entire milk and the mixture boils, take the pan away from oven. Stir the pudding with an electrical mixer for about at least 5 minutes. You will see that the pudding becomes smooth. By the way, don't worry if despite all of your effort the mixture gets lumpy. The mixture will become smooth after this stirring procedure. In the end, pour the pudding into a pyrex (or oven proof glass pan) and cool it down. Pour some cinnamon at the top and refrigerate it over night. The pudding is ready to serve :) Enjoy!

Burma Baklava (Twisted Baklava)

Hi all,

We’re starting with delicious traditional Turkish Burma Baklava :) I know y’all very curious about the recipe. Now, it is time to reveal the top secrets about Burma Baklava. Don’t worry it is not that hard. It just takes a little bit time, but the final taste will make you forget the time you spend for preparation. In Turkey, we have different kinds of Baklava. Burma Baklava is one of them. Hopefully, we will give more recipes about the other kinds in the future. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 rolls of phyllo dough (1/2 of a package of phyllo dough)
4-5 cups of chopped walnut (not too chopped, the parts should be at least as big as sweet peas)
2 sticks of unsalted butter
3/2 cups of sugar
3/2 cups of water
1/2 tbs fresh lemon juice

First, take out the phyllo dough from the freezer at least two hours before you begin. If you forget to take it out or just decide to cook Baklava, don’t worry, you can defrost it using a microwave. However, you should be careful if you use microwave. We want the dough just defrosted, but not hot and melted. Take two sheets of dough and put it on a table. Scatter 3-4 tbs of chopped walnut to every place of dough like I do in the picture (picture 2). By the way, you can just click on the picture below to expand it :). Then, wrinkle the dough by using your fingers (picture 3), bring the sides to the middle (picture 4). Then bring two opposite sides together on top (picture 5). Twist it, like you are sharpening a pencil by using sharpener, starting from the right by using your right hand and support the dough by using your left hand. It will look like picture 6. Then put the twisted dough in a pyrex or in a deep baking tin.

Apply the same procedure to remaining dough. After you finish this step, cut the dough inti small pieces as in picture 8. Then, put butter in a pan and melt it. After it is melted, continue heating it. Butter will begin to boil. Boil it for 5 minutes. During this time, mix the butter with a spoon. Then pour the melted butter onto twisted dough equally. Put the tray in a preheated oven. The heat should be 325F. Cook it until the color of the dough becomes brownish (picture 9). After the dough is cooked, you can start to prepare its syrup. Put sugar and water in a pan and heat it. After it begins to boil wait 5-6 minutes. Then pour the lemon juice and boil it one more minute. Turn off the heat and wait just 5 minutes, During this 5 minutes, the syrup will be cool down a little bit. Then pour the syrup onto dough equally. Don't forget, the dough should be cold or warm but not hot while you're pouring the syrup. Wait at least an hour for dough absorbs the syrup. Burma Baklava is ready to serve. Bon appetite!