Börek

''Börek'' or burek or byrek is a family of pastries or pies made in the Middle East and the Balkans. The pastry is made of a thin flaky dough such as filo with a variety of fillings, such as meat, cheese, spinach, or potatoes. A borek may be prepared in a large pan and cut into portions after baking, or as individual pastries. They are usually baked but some varieties can be fried. Borek is sometimes sprinkled with sesame or nigella seeds, and it can be served hot or cold.

Throughout the Balkan peninsula and in Turkey, it is commonly served with ayran or yogurt. It is a custom of Sephardic Jews to have '' bourekas'' for their Shabbat breakfast meal on Saturday mornings.

Origin and names

The English name ''borek'' comes from Turkish (Turkish pronunciation: œˈɾec, while ''burek'' is used in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Forms in other languages include: ; ; ; and ; and .

According to lexicographer Sevan Nişanyan, the Turkish word is ultimately originated from Turkic , from '' böğür'' (meaning 'kidney'). Nişanyan noted that the word is also used in Siberian Turkic languages such as Saqa as ''börüök''. According to another theory, it may have come from the Persian (), the diminutive form of or or (), meaning "stew", and refers to any dish made with '' yufka'' (filo). The Persian word goes back to the Middle Persian *bōrak. This word ultimately goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *bher- which meant "to carve, cut, split".Hạsandūst, Muhạmmad. 2014.Hassandust, Mohammad. 2015
The etymological dictionary of Persian
. 5 Vols. Tehran: Academy of Persian Language and Literature. vol. 1 p.529.(Farhang-i rīšašināḫtī-i zabān-i Fārsī Ǧild 2 Ǧild 1. s.529) The name of another pastry, shekarbura, is also borrowed from the same Persian word. Nişanyan noted the possibility of Turkic origin for the Persian word.Nişanyan – Türkçe Etimolojik Sözlük
börek
. accessed: 26 April 2021.

Some types of borek could possibly have their origins in Turkish cuisine, having been developed in Central Asia before some westward migration to Anatolia in the late Middle Ages, or by nomadic Turks of Central Asia some time before the seventh century.

Another theory posits that the dish in general is a descendant of the pre-existing Eastern Roman (Byzantine) dish ''en tyritas plakountas'' (Byzantine Greek: ) "cheesy placenta", itself a descendant of ''placenta'', the classical baked layered dough and cheese dish of Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman and Byzantine cuisine.

The dish was a popular element of Ottoman cuisine, and may have been present at the Ottoman court, though there are also indications it was made among Central Asian Turks;Perry, Charles. "The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava", in ''A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East'' (ed. Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper), 1994, . other versions may date to the Classical era of the eastern Mediterranean.Speros Vryonis ''The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor'', 1971, p. 482

One alternative etymological origin that has been suggested is that the word comes from the Turkic root ''bur-'' 'to twist', but the sound harmony for this proposal would dictate the suffix "-aq", and Turkic languages in Arabic orthography invariably write with an ك not an ق, which weighs against this origin.

Regional variants

Even though borek is very popular in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, especially in North Africa and throughout the Balkans, it originated in Anatolia. Borek is also part of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish traditions. They have been adopted by the Ottoman Jewish communities, and have been described—along with boyos de pan and ''bulemas''—as forming "the trio of preeminent Ottoman Jewish pastries".

Turkish variants

The word ''börek'' in Turkish can be modified by a descriptive word referring to the shape, ingredients of the pastry, or a specific region where it is typically prepared, as in the above ''kol böreği'', ''su böreği'', ''talaş böreği'' or ''Sarıyer böreği''. There are many variations of börek in Turkish cuisine:

Balkans

In the former Yugoslavia, burek, also known as ''pita'' in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is an extremely common dish, made with yufka. This kind of pastry is also popular in Croatia, where it was imported by Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albanians. In Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, ''burek'' is made from layers of dough, alternating with layers of other fillings in a circular baking pan and then topped with a last layer of dough. Traditionally, it may be baked with no filling (''prazan'', meaning empty), with stewed minced meat and onions, or with cheese. Modern bakeries offer cheese and spinach, meat, apple, sour cherries, potato, mushroom, and other fillings. It is often eaten along with a plain yoghurt drink.

Zeljanica is a spinach or chard based burek common throughout the Balkans.

Albania and Kosovo

In Albania, this dish is called . In Kosovo and few other regions, byrek is also known as "pite". Byrek is traditionally made with several layers of dough that have been thinly rolled out by hand. The final form can be small, individual triangles, especially from street vendors called "byrektore" which sell byrek and other traditional pastries and drinks. It can also be made as one large byrek that is cut into smaller pieces. There are different regional variations of byrek. It can be served cold or hot.

The most common fillings include: cheese (especially ''gjizë'', salted curd cheese), ground meat and onions (ragù-style filling), spinach and eggs, milk and eggs with pre-baked dough layers, it can also be made with tomato and onions, peppers and beans, potato or a sweet filling of pumpkin, nettles (known as ''byrek me hithra''), or kidney beans (''byrek me fasule'') which is popular in winter.

There are mainly two categories of Albanian Byrek. The house byrek ''(byrek shtëpie)'' and triangle byrek (byrek trekendësh), the latter being mostly used as street food.

'' Lakror'' is an Albanian pie dish from southern Albania. The pie is sometimes called a type of byrek pastry. Lakror is generally filled with a variety of greens or meats. Another related dish is '' Fli'', typical from the North of Albania and Kosovo. It is made up of layers of a flour and water batter, cream and butter. Traditionally, it is baked on embers like lakror.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In 2012, Lonely Planet included the Bosnian burek in their "The World's Best Street Food" book. Eaten for any meal of the day, in Bosnia and Herzegovina the burek is a meat-filled pastry, traditionally rolled in a spiral and cut into sections for serving. The same spiral filled with cottage cheese is called ''sirnica'', with spinach and cheese ''zeljanica'', with potatoes ''krompiruša'', and all of them are generically referred to as ''pita''. Eggs are used as a binding agent when making ''sirnica'' and ''zeljanica''.

Bulgaria and North Macedonia

The Bulgarian version of the pastry, locally called (Cyrillic: ), is typically regarded as a variation of '' banitsa'' (), a similar Bulgarian dish. Bulgarian byurek is a type of ''banitsa'' with '' sirene'' cheese, the difference being that byurek also has eggs added.

In Bulgarian, ''byurek'' has also come to be applied to other dishes similarly prepared with cheese and eggs, such as ''chushka byurek'' (), a peeled and roasted pepper filled with cheese, and ''tikvichka byurek'' (), blanched or uncooked bits of squash with eggs filling.

Greece

In Greece, ''boureki'' or ''bourekaki'', and Cyprus ''poureki'' (, in the Greek dialects of the island) are small pastries made with phyllo dough or with pastry crust. Pastries in the börek family are also called ''pita'' (pie): '' tiropita'', '' spanakopita'', and so on. Galaktoboureko is a syrupy phyllo pastry filled with custard, common throughout Greece and Cyprus. In the Epirus, σκερ-μπουρέκ is a small rosewater-flavoured marzipan sweet. Bougatsa (Greek is a Greek variation of a borek which consists of either semolina custard, cheese, or minced meat filling between layers of phyllo, and is said to originate in the city of Serres, an art of pastry brought with the immigrants from Constantinople and is most popular in Thessaloniki, in the Central Macedonia region of Northern Greece. Serres achieved the record for the largest puff pastry on 1 June 2008. It weighed , was long, and was made by more than 40 bakers. In Venetian Corfu, boureki was also called ''burriche'', and filled with meat and leafy greens. The Pontian Greek piroski (πιροσκί) derives its name from borek too. It is almost identical in name and form to pirozhki (Russian: пирожки), which is of Slavic origin, and popular in Russia and further east.

Serbia

The recipe for "round" burek was developed in the Serbian town of Niš. In 1498, it was introduced by a famous Turkish baker, Mehmed Oğlu, from Istanbul. Eventually burek spread from the southeast (southern Serbia, Kosovo and North Macedonia) to the rest of Yugoslavia. Niš hosts an annual burek competition and festival called ''Buregdžijada''. In 2005, a 100 kg (220 lbs) burek was made, with a diameter of 2 metres (≈6 ft) and it is considered to have been the world's biggest burek ever made.

Slovenia

In Slovenia, burek is a recognizable and widely available fast food, particularly among students and in urban nightlife settings. While it enjoys popularity in certain contexts, it also carries complex cultural associations linked to its Balkan origins, and is not universally embraced as part of mainstream Slovenian cuisine.

Moldova and Romania

The regional cuisine of the Moldavian West bank of the Pruth still yields a type of dumpling-like food called ''burechiuşe'' (sometimes called ''burechiţe'') which is described as dough in the shape of a ravioli-like square which is filled with mushrooms such as Boletus edulis, and sealed around its edges and then tossed and subsequently boiled in borscht like soups or chorbas. They are traditionally eaten in the last day of fasting at the time of the Christmas Eve. It is not clear if the ''burechiuşe'' derive their name from the Turco-Greek ''börek'' (which is a distinct possibility given the fact that Moldavia was ruled for many decades by dynasties of Greek Phanariotes and that encouraged Greek colonists to settle in the area), so at the receiving end of cultural and culinary influences coming from them, or it takes its name from that of the mushroom Boletus (''burete'' in its Romanian language rhotacised version, and it meant "mushroom" as well as "sponge") by the pattern of the ravioli, which were named after the Italian name of the turnip with which they were once filled.

In Romania, the plăcintă is considered a variation of the phyllo-wrapped pie, with the dough traditionally stuffed with cheese. In Dobruja, an eastern territory that used to be a Turkish province, one can find both the Turkish influence—plăcintă dobrogeană either filled with cheese or with minced meat and served with sheep yoghurt or the Tatar street food Suberek—a deep-fried half-moon cheese-filled dough.

Other countries

Algeria

In Algeria, this dish is called '' bourek'', a roll of pastry sheet stuffed with meat, onions, and spice, is one of the main appetizers of Algerian cuisine.

It is a starter served when receiving guests and especially during Ramadan evenings during the round meal of the holy month, usually accompanied by Algerian Chorba or Harira. Other forms include bourek packed with chicken and onions, shrimp and béchamel sauce, or a vegetarian alternative usually made of mashed potatoes and spinach.

Another Algerian variant of Bourek is called Brik or Brika, a speciality of Algeria's east, notably Annaba. It is a savory entree made from brik leaf, stuffed with mashed potatoes and a mixture of minced meat, onions, cheese and parsley. The whole is topped with a seasoned raw egg which cooks once the sheet of brik has been folded and soaked in boiling oil.

Armenia

In Armenia, () or () consists of dough, or filo dough, folded into triangles and stuffed with spinach, onions and feta cheese or ground beef.

Israel

Burekas () have long been part of Sephardic Jewish cuisine, ever since the migration of a large portion of that community to the Ottoman Empire following the Expulsion of Jews from Spain. The name "burekas" is the plural form of the original Balkan dish, as conjugated in Judaeo-Spanish. The name refers both to larger varieties (palm-sized or larger) and smaller varieties (originally called "Burekitas" by contrast, though the word has fallen out of use in Modern Hebrew). Burekas were later introduced to Israel by Sephardi immigrants from communities in Turkey and the Balkans during Ottoman rule. They are now sold commonly in bakeries, as well as dedicated market stalls, throughout the country.

Israeli Burkeas may be prepared with a variety of different fillings; although meat is less-commonly used because of Kashrut#Separation of meat and milk, Jewish dietary laws - specifically the prohibition against mixing milk and meat. Many types of burekas prepared and sold in Israel (particularly those that do not contain cheese) are made with Margarine-based doughs rather than butter-based doughs, in order to make them Parve - allowing them to be eaten as part of any type of meal. The most popular fillings are salty cheese (primarily Feta), spinach, eggplant and mashed potato. Other fillings include mushrooms, sweet potato, chickpeas, olives, Malva, mallows, swiss chard, and tomato sauce (known as "burekas pizza"). Burekas are traditionally offered as snacks during large gatherings and even office meetings. Multiple locally-made brands and varieties of pre-made, frozen burekas (for quick baking or frying) are commonly sold in grocery stores.

Other related pastries traditionally consumed by Sephardic Jews include bulemas and boyoz, which are also popular in the Turkish city of İzmir, Izmir.

Libya

It is also a popular dish in Libya, where it is known as brik.

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, Burēk (, ), is usually made in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, it mostly resembles the Bosnian rolled burek but can also come in other variants, and it is stuffed with minced meat or with salty cheese and dill. It is usually served during the month of Ramadan, same goes to samosas.

Tunisia

In Tunisia, there is a variant known as the brik ( ; ) that consists of thin crepe-like pastry around a filling and is commonly deep fried. The best-known is the egg brik, a whole egg in a triangular pastry pocket with chopped onion, tuna, harissa and parsley. The Tunisian ''brik'' is also very popular in Israel, due to the large Tunisian Jewish population there. It is often filled with a raw egg and herbs or tuna, harissa, and olives, and it is sometimes served in a pita. This is also known as a ''boreeka''.

See also

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* List of ancient dishes, List of ancient dishes and foods
* List of pastries

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borek
Albanian cuisine
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