An all-day venue in Islington, The Nook specialises in classic and natural wines and food that’s described as “Contemporary European with a Turkish Twist”. The wine bar and restaurant’s borek recipe is a large, sharing-size parcel of shop-bought filo pastry stuffed with feta cheese, spinach, parsley and dill. It’s simple to make at home in under an hour, while the filling can also be alternated to include the likes of potato and mint, or onion and smoked aubergine.
“There are different types of borek, some are rolled in a long sheet to create a rose borek, some wrapped to form individual parcels and this one that I am describing here is a common type which can be built into a baking dish, it is practical and tasty. You can use a medium size glass or earthenware baking dish, the ideal would be to use a metal din dish like a roasting tin so the filo will get more heath from the bottom and will have a bigger chance to crisp up. The size can be approx. 24 cmx 24 cm; it can be any shape including a circle, the dimensions given is mainly as a clue to the capacity of the dish. You can swap the filling into anything you fancy including cooked grated potatoes seasoned with paprika and mint, or onions and smoked aubergines.”
Borek
Ingredients
- 1 packet filo pastry (you can use Jus Roll's Filo which has 7 sheets in it.)
- 3 cups milk approx. 700ml
- 4 eggs
- 100 ml olive oil
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 400 g Feta Cheese
- 200 g baby spinach washed
- 1 bunch of parsley approx. 80 g
- 1 small bunch of dill approx. 40 g
- Sesame seeds or nigella seeds for garnish
Instructions
- Brush the baking dish with olive oil.
- Whisk 3 of the eggs in a mixing bowl, add the milk and remaining olive oil and keep whisking until all is mixed.
- To prepare the filling, chop the washed herbs and baby spinach roughly, place together into a bowl with crumbled feta and the black pepper. The herbs can be chopped slightly finer than the spinach, with baby spinach all we will need to do will be running our knife through it to chop them into slightly smaller pieces.
- Whisk the last remaining egg in a small bowl and set aside. We will brush the top with this.
- Start building the borek into the oiled baking dish. Take your first sheet and place it onto the bottom of the dish in an uneven and wrinkly fashion. Drizzle the filo with approx. 1/6 of the milk-egg mixture. Sprinkle 1/6 of the filling and move onto the next layer by repeating the same thing.
- After repeating this with six layers of filo and filling, cover the last layer of the filling with the last sheet of filo, brush it with the egg that was kept aside, and sprinkle with black sesame and sesame seeds.
- Bake it in the oven pre-heated to 180C/Gas 4 for around 40 minutes until it is golden and crispy.
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