Every morning, the aroma of freshly baked, cheesy pastry wafts down the wandering old town streets of Gaziantep, Turkey. When I attended cooking school in the city, I’d often follow my nose straight to the source: a shop where coils of golden, flaky kol börek, still warm from the oven, fogged up the display windows.
Behind the Recipes
Mastering the Art of Turkish Kol Böreği
This hypnotic spiral of golden, flaky pastry—sometimes called borek—filled with spinach and cheese is an icon of Turkish cuisine.
By Published Apr. 2, 2024.
Throughout my time in Turkey, I was never far from börek, a category of pastries shaped from a thin dough; filled; then baked, fried, boiled, or steamed.
The countless varieties of Turkish börek (some of which are called “böreği”) each have different names that describe how they look or are prepared. Oblong, fried sigara böreği were always among the mezze spread at dinners out with friends. On Saturday mornings, I’d eagerly wait in a line outside the best börekçi to purchase su böreği a squiggly-layered, boiled and then baked type, oozing with cheese. And at school, I cooked several other varieties, from the pillowy, juicy meat turnovers known as Çi börek to an open flame–fired tepsi böreği.
When I left Gaziantep, I brought with me a renewed appreciation for the endless potential of a simple sheet of pastry dough. I was thus eager to develop a recipe for kol, or “arm,” böreği, an oblong coil or snail-shell spiral, typically made with the flaky pastry dough yufka, that’s filled with spinach and cheese.
This variation showcases some of the qualities of börek that I love most. It is light enough to eat with other mezze, yet it is substantial enough to be breakfast or a hearty snack with çay, Turkish tea. It boasts multidimensional textures, with tender interior coils and golden, flakier exterior ones. And, in spite of its striking, intricate looks, kol böreği is simple to make with purchased dough and requires just a few ingredients.
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Turkey’s Essential Pastry Sheet
The dough typically used in most styles of Turkish börek, including kol böreği, is yufka—thin, wide sheets of pastry that are often purchased at yufkacı, shops primarily dedicated to the pastry that can be found in nearly every Turkish neighborhood. At these shops, the sheets are typically rolled out partly by machine, but in small villages, cooks transform the simple dough into delicate, gossamer sheets entirely by hand, with a long rolling pin called an oklava.
To replicate this traditional dough, we turned to phyllo, which is thinner and shorter than yufka but similar in flavor. Stacking three sheets best imitated delicate yet resilient yufka.
Perfecting the Pastry
Making kol böreği is a straightforward process: Assemble a filling; spread it atop a sheet of dough; roll the dough into cylinders; and create a spiral, brushing with an egg mixture to hold the pieces together.
Top with nutty sesame seeds and earthy nigella seeds; bake; and serve, cutting the spiral into wedges that show off the pastry’s mesmerizingly loopy cross section.
In Gaziantep, I always made börek with the traditional yufka, which can be purchased ready-made in large round sheets.
However, while it’s easy for Turkish cooks to buy yufka at their local yufkacı (shops dedicated to the dough), I required a stateside substitute. Phyllo is a common choice; I’d just need to layer a few sheets to mimic the thickness and length of the traditional dough.
To replicate the length, I overlapped two sheets of phyllo on their short sides and glued them together with a mixture of oil, egg, and milk to create one long 27-inch piece. As for the thickness, I tested stacking two, three, and four sheets of my extra-long phyllo and determined that three came closest to yufka’s tender flakiness.
Anatomy of Kol Börek
- Crisp Exterior: The outermost layers of pastry crisp and brown in the heat of the oven.
- Cohesive Structure: A combination of egg, milk, and oil brushed onto the dough keeps the cylinders of dough in a spiral shape.
- Light Filling: A modest amount of the spinach-feta filling allows the pastry to take the leading role.
The dough in nearly every börek is held together with a mixture known as “sos” in Turkish. It’s a multifunctional combination of egg, milk or yogurt, and oil that adds moisture and flavor to the pastry; glues the layers together; and enhances crispness, browning, and shine.
To measure the impact of the sos, I tested a kol böreği made with only clarified butter and another with the sos side by side, and the results were clear—the börek made with butter was crisp and brown, but the rolls didn’t cohere, and the pastry as a whole was drier and less flavorful.
On to the third major component of kol böreği: the filling. Some versions of the dish feature potatoes or ground meat, but I like a classic mixture of spinach or herbs, alliums, and a crumbly cheese, such as Turkey’s firm, white beyaz peynir. I started by sautéing a finely chopped onion and then added frozen spinach that I had thawed and squeezed dry, cooking the two together briefly to rid the mixture of any excess liquid. After letting the spinach mixture cool for 10 minutes, I crumbled in some feta cheese (a common substitute for beyaz peynir) and stirred it all together.
Science: The Special Functions of a Special Sauce
Most traditional recipes for all styles of börek call for a sos (sauce) of oil, egg, and milk or yogurt to be brushed on both in the construction of the pastry and as a finishing flourish before baking. To understand the importance of the sauce, we compared a kol böreği treated with it side by side with one treated with clarified butter only (as some other phyllo- and yufka-based dishes are). Sure enough, the version made without the sos was drier and less flavorful; plus, the coils didn’t stick together as well. Here’s a closer look at the multiple functions of this simple mixture.
- STRUCTURE: The sticky albumin proteins in the egg function as an adhesive, gluing the coils together.
- SHINE: The oil brings luster to the matte pastry and contributes subtle flavor.
- BROWNING: the dairy and egg enhance browning by participating in the Maillard reaction, in which proteins and sugars combine under heat to produce new flavor compounds and deeper color.
Spiral-Bound
Time to assemble. I made my extra-long, extra-thick phyllo sheet, binding the pieces together with just enough sos to lightly coat the dough without making it soggy. I arranged a scant amount of filling—too much can impede the pastry’s crispness—in a line parallel to the bottom of the dough and then lifted the bottom edge and rolled the filling up like a cinnamon roll. I coiled the dough around itself, creating the center of a spiral, and then transferred it to a baking sheet. I created three more cylinders, adding them to the growing spiral to create the illusion of a continuous coil.
The spiral complete, I brushed its top and edges with sos, taking special care to coat the seams where the cylinders met. I then sprinkled on the seeds and slid the baking sheet into the oven. Thirty minutes later, the börek was deeply golden brown and crispy-edged, and that old familiar aroma was in the air. It was time to brew some çay, cut myself a slice, and reminisce about life in Gaziantep.
