Börek – Turkish Pasties - cooking recipe

Ingredients

Dough (for 16 pasties)
100 g butter
200 ml milk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
20 g fresh yeast
2 eggs
2 egg whites (save the yolks for brushing the pasties!)
1000 ml all-purpose flour
Feta cheese filling (for 8 pasties)
1 small onion
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon oil
200 g feta cheese
1 egg
100 ml chopped fresh parsley
50 ml chopped fresh dill
50 ml plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper
Ground beef filling (for 8 pasties)
300 g ground beef
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon oil
100 ml chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 -2 teaspoon chili paste
1 1/2 teaspoons ground paprika
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon salt
black pepper
1 egg

Preparation

To make dough: Melt butter. Add milk, sugar and salt. Check the temperature (it should be 35-37 C) and crumble yeast into the mixture. Add eggs and egg whites, stir. Gradually add flour; knead the dough for about five minutes or until it is smooth and elastic and starts to pull away from the edges of the bowl. Cover and let rise for 30-60 minutes.
To make cheese filling: Finely chop onion and garlic. Heat oil in a pan and cook onion and garlic until softened. Let cool. Crumble feta in a bowl with a fork and mix all ingredients together into a paste.
To make ground beef filling: Finely chop onion and garlic. Heat oil in a pan and cook onion, garlic and ground beef until browned. Add all remaining ingredients except for egg. Check the taste: the filling should taste fairly strong and salty. Let cool and finally mix in egg.
Preheat oven to 225\u00b0C Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Oil the baking board and turn the dough on it. Divide the dough in half and cut each half into 8 pieces.
Roll each piece out into an oval about 1/2 cm thick. Divide the fillings between the 16 ovals. Turn a few centimetres of the dough on top of the filling on each side and pinch the ends together tightly, so you have a boat-shaped pasty. (You can bring the sides quite close together, as the pasties \"open\" a bit as they bake). Carefully transfer the pasties on the baking sheet. Brush the sides with egg yolk and bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature.