Turkish Sigara Borek Recipe and Video

Börek is a Turkish pastry with savory filling. The most common fillings are cheese, meat and spinach. I love these tasty little cheese-filled sigara börek (shaped like cigarettes) because they’re great for grabbing and dipping and they're always a big hit at a party.

My travels to Istanbul left me with a long list of recipes I was excited to make at home. Sigara Börek was high up on the list. These scrumptious cheese filled phyllo rolls are perfect finger food - crispy, crunchy and packed-with-flavor. 

One of the best experiences of my Istanbul trip was lunch at the home of our friend's Ihsan's mother and sister. We were treated to a home-cooked traditional Turkish meal that began with a rooftop cocktail party. The passed appetizer was Sigara Börek.

That's where I first fell in love with this dish. I've made it many times since I returned home, for my own parties. It's always a big crowd pleaser.

There are many varieties of Turkish börek. One type that's extremely popular looks like a white lasagna or a noodle kugel with a flaky, buttery top.

When I was in Istanbul there was a börekçi (börek shop) near my hotel that I walked past every day. That took serious willpower by the way. If not for the fact that I was on a culinary tour and needed to save room for lots of other delicious foods, I would have gone into that shop every day for some borek.

On the last day of my trip, just before we headed to the airport, I decided to get a taste. It was beyond exciting to watch the shop owner cut off a nice big piece for me, chop it up, and pile it into a paper bowl to go.

It was pure heaven!

HOW TO MAKE SIGARA BÖREK

This sigara börek recipe takes some time but is well worth the effort. The steps are: make the cheese filling; roll up the filling in strips of phyllo; sauté the rolls. Done!

• Make The Cheese Filling: Mix crumbled feta with chopped scallions, parsley, eggs, and pepper.
• Roll up the Borek: Set up a rolling station with a bowl of the feta mixture, a small bowl of water, your defrosted phyllo dough covered with a clean, damp dish towel, and a plate to place the rolls on, as you make them.

• Place one sheet of phyllo on your work surface.
• Cut it into four strips and don't worry about being too precise. It doesn't matter if your strips are a little uneven.

• Put about 2 teaspoons of the feta mixture at the end of one strip, leaving a border on the end and on each side so that you can fold the long sides of the phyllo over the cheese, to meet each other in the middle.

• Roll up the dough to the end.
• Repeat, rolling up the filling in strips of phyllo dough, until you've used all of your filling.

• Sauté the rolls in a skillet until crisp and brown.
• Drain them on paper towels.

• Serve börek warm or at room temperature.

Sigara Borek are such a delicious treat, crisp and flavorful. I love them with the garlicky yogurt sauce but they're also excellent on their own.

Tips For Working With Phyllo:

The biggest challenge of this recipe is learning how to handle the delicate phyllo sheets so they don't dry out or rip. Read through these tips and you should have no problems.

1. Defrost the phyllo dough: Phyllo dough is sold frozen. If you defrost it according to the package directions, which takes several hours, it will be perfect to work with. A couple of times, when I needed to rush the thawing process, I had success with putting the whole unopened box of phyllo in a warm oven (preheated to 300ºF and then shut off) for 30 minutes. I can't promise that it will work for you - you are safer to go by the book - but in a pinch you can give my unconventional thawing method a try.
2. Keep phyllo dough moist: Once you remove your phyllo from the box and take it out of the plastic, it will immediately start to dry out. Be prepared with a clean, damp dish towel. Keep your phyllo sheets rolled up, placed on a cutting board or platter, covered with the towel at all times. Lift the towel off briefly, unroll the stack and pull out a sheet to work with. Then re roll and recover the stack.
3. Don't fret if your phyllo sheets tear: if they crack or crumble a bit while you're rolling them, dab some water on the the torn part and keep rolling, and everything will usually stick together and result in a perfect little roll. 
4. Expect to throw away a bunch of phyllo sheets. It's virtually impossible to work with these delicate sheets without messing up a few times. As hard as I try to be gentle, I often end up ripping some of them badly as I pull them out of the stack. There are about 20 sheets in a 1-pound box. Multiply that times four (since you're cutting the sheets into fourths) and that gives you 80 strips - more than you will need for this recipe. So don't fret if at first you don't succeed. 

How to Freeze borek

• You can make the sigara borek rolls ahead and refrigerate them for a day or two before cooking.
• You can freeze uncooked börek and cook them straight from the freezer.
• To freeze borek, lay the rolls out in layers, with waxed paper in between, in a container with a tight-fitting lid.
• Freeze Borek for up to 2 months. Cook them straight from the freezer. 

Here are more delicious Turkish recipe to try

• Turkish Manti: Tiny Lamb-filled Dumplings with Three Sauces
• Turkish Hot Layered Hummus
• Turkish Sesame Fried Chicken Bites with Tahini Yogurt Remoulade
• Grilled Turkish Kofta Kebabs
• Turkish White Bean Salad (piyaz)

If you try this Sigara Borek Recipe, I hope you'll come back to leave a star rating and a comment. I'd love to know what you think!

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