I enjoy cooking recipes from Turkish cuisine, but my biggest challenge is finding the correct ingredients where I live, in Nova Scotia. Most of the times, I have to substitute the ingredients with the equivalents that I find here in the market. But, this time I had a brilliant idea: Why not taking the ingredients that I can easily buy here, and insert them to some of my Turkish recipes?
The first attempt of the challenge was quite successful: “Börek” with Nova Scotia lobster. For this recipe, I used frozen phyllo dough. It’s very practical, but of course making the dough from scratch would definitely up the game. (I might try this one day.)
The most important characteristics of a delicious börek is to have it moist inside and crispy outside. I will share all the details to achieve this. So, here comes the recipe:
Borek with Lobster
A recipe that brings two continents together
Ingredients
- Frozen phyllo dough (1 package)
- 350 grams boiled lobster & cleaned meat
- 1 cup grated mozarella
- ½ bunch of spring onions
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup sunflower oil
- 2 table spoons yogurt
- Salt & pepper
- 2 eggs (keep 1 yolk to top)
- Sesame & poppy seeds for top
- 1 cup juice of boiled lobster
- ½ cup cream
- ½ cup white wine
- Salt & pepper
- Cucumber
- Sweet corn
- Dill
For egg wash:
For the sauce:
For the side salad:
Directions
- Prepare the filling with boiled lobster meat, some spring onions and grated mozzarella, and season it with salt and black pepper.
- Prepare a kind of “egg wash” by mixing vigorously yogurt, milk, sunflower oil and eggs, and season it with salt and black pepper.
- After preparing the egg wash and the filling, it comes to fill the dough and shape them. Easiest is the triangle shape. For this you will cut your phyllo dough to long rectangles, put the filling on the top, and fold it couple of times in the opposite directions until all the dough is covered. Use some cold water to stick the last piece of phyllo with some water to stick and close. Do not forget to use the egg wash in every layer of dough, apply it with a pastry brush. It should be wet, but not soaked.
- Fill and shape all the borek. Once it’s done, whisk the egg yolk with a spoon of water and use it to apply on top of each borek. Sprinkle some sesame and poppy seeds on top. Now they are ready for oven.
- Bake 20 – 30 min, until they are browned on top, but looks super puffed and flaky. This will be the moment of truth. Because if you filled your borek to much, you might have some of them exploded. It’s a good idea to not to be so generous with the filling to avoid this.
- While waiting the oven, make a quick sauce by reducing lobster juice, add the wine and evaporate the alcohol and finally add the cream and season with salt and pepper. Prepare a small side salad with cucumber, sweet corn and dill, season with some olive oil and lemon to add freshness.
- Out of oven! Be careful they are super hot, just wait couple of minutes to cool down. The rest was the fun part, make a nice plate decoration and pair it with a glass of wine of your choice.
Wine pairing
For wine pairing, I chose a Riesling from Alsace. It’s from Domaine Amélie & Charles Sparr, a Grand Cru 2017. I bought this bottle last time I was visiting Montreal. It poured to the glass with its light but bright gold color, smelled impressively complex with flowers of honeysuckle and jasmine, and lots of stone fruits and lemon. It also had a touch of characteristic petrol note, but it was all integrated with the other lovely aromas. It was dry with a good balance, had medium acidity and body, nice and long finish with honeysuckle and pear flavors dominating the palate. I enjoyed every sip of this wine, very impressive. It was able to elevate this dish with its complexity.
Cheers,
Wi.Nes
All images © 2020 by Neslihan IVIT. All rights reserved.
