Merhaba!

Iyi günler. Nasilsinisiz? Çok iyiim

Sorry yesterday’s recipe is late. But it’s a good’un. Apologies for those who’s E-mail as messed up any special characters.

Börekler.

Turkish pies. This type are generically known as Tartari Boregi, and are sort of a cross between ravioli and Cornish pasties.

For the dough:
1 LB plain flour
2 eggs
1/ 4 pint milk.
Make like pasta - i.e. put flour in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Put in two beaten eggs and work in, adding milk to achieve a useful consistency. Knead thoroughly. Leave to rest. Roll out as thin as you can on a well-floured surface.

Fillings:
The best one: Grate some courgettes. Leave to drain in a sieve or colander under a weighted plate for a couple of hours. Mix with a beaten egg, salt, pepper, a dash of oregano, some crumbled feta, (Or, in Turkish, beyaz paynir).
Grated pumpkin, chilli, salt, raisins, allspice.
Cook spinach in butter and squeeze out as much water as possible. Combine with pine nuts and raisins.
Spinach again, only with feta and mint.
Cubed, cooked potatoes, feta, mint.

Cut dough into either four inch squares, or 4 inch diameter circles (i.e. use a saucer of a template. If you choose squares, what you do is place a little filling along the middle, leaving plenty of space at either end, roll and crimp the ends. If circles - a daud in the middle, fold over and crimp edges.

Melt some butter and thoroughly brush a baking tray. Arrange the Börekler. Brush with plenty more melted butter. Bake, Gas 5, 350 F until golden.

An accompanying sauce:
Water or stock,
Tomato puree
Grated cheese
Butter
Mint.
….Boil.

****Turkish Language and Culture****
A lesson in linguistics:
An unusual language, Turkish. It has no genders, and nouns aren’t plural after a number. E.g. Börek, 2 Börek… but Börekler = plural of Börek
Also, vowels in adjectives or word endings agree with those in the noun, so that they "harmonise."
Verbs can get very long, because you add prefixes and suffixes to change case, person, etc.
e.g. Iste = to want. Istiyorum = I (-um) want (isti-) in the present tense (-yor-).
One more thing: The alphabet. Before Kemal Atatürk modernised Turkey, they used Arabic script. This was replaced by a westernised way of writing, based largely on the German alphabet, but with things like cedillas under C’s or S’s, an upside-down mark on top of a G to make it silent, and Is with or without dots. Impossible to type on my keyboard.

Allaha aismarlaidik!
D.