Rose Börek With Potato & Spinach – Patatesli Ispanaklı Gül Böreği

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Our gül böreği recipe is what we’re going to be making in this article.

One of life’s simple foodie pleasures; the famous Turkish pastries; börek. And arguably, the börek with the prettiest name is gül böreği (rose börek).

Well, we think so, at least.

Gül böreği is a staple in Turkish cuisine and is so popular because of its shape. It makes a perfect street food!

If we’re on the move and need to grab a snack on the go, we very often buy a simit or, for a change, we’ll get a rose börek.

Simit and rose börek are very often for sale in your local market (small grocery shops). So no need to hunt out one of the dedicated pastry shops (börekçi).

I love to get a gül böreği if we’re at the Otogar in Fethiye, about to go on a longer bus journey.

Made from yufka (a type of phyllo dough) its circular, spiral shape makes it easy to hold and eat whilst on the go.

And the amount of yufka and filling used means those hunger pangs are more than adequately dealt with. And you get a tasty treat to boot!

Because, don’t be thinking gül börek – or other Turkish börek dishes, for that matter – are just simple Turkish food snacks.

Börek had a prominent position on the tables of Sultans during the Ottoman Empire!

And gül böreği also has a prominent place on the table in our house, too.

Aside from eating it at home, it’s also a popular dish for us to make for picnics. Rose börek is an ideal pastry to make for taking on long walks or drives.

Experiment With Different Savoury Fillings

And what I love about making gül böreği is that you can experiment with different fillings.

For our gül böreği recipe, we’re going to be doing a combination of two common fillings: spinach and potato.

We’ve used this combination in the past when we made a spinach and potato puff pastry roll.

Spinach börek without the potato is really tasty and a popular filling. That’s what we were originally going to do for our gül böreği recipe.

However, we’d eaten half of our spinach bounty the day before. So we needed a companion for what was left.

Lots of people love beyaz peynir (Turkish white cheese – you can use feta cheese) or lor peynir (curd cheese) with spinach.

We use this in our sigara böreği. But cheese is Barry’s least favourite choice of filling so we avoid it where possible.

How To Make Gül Böreği – Rose Börek

Turkish gül böreği really looks the part but is actually very easy to make. Our recipe makes 8 individual rose börek.

The Filling For Our Gül Böreği Recipe

Our filling is very simple.

We boil two medium-sized potatoes. Cut them into bite-sized chunks so they cook quicker.

And, in a frying pan, we sauté 250 grams of chopped fresh spinach leaves.

We add salt and freshly ground black pepper, a little bit of salça (tomato paste), water and some spices (paprika and hot red pepper flakes – pul biber). Then let it simmer until the juices have almost evaporated.

Next we roughly mash our potato with a fork. Don’t properly mash it. Just squash it and rough it up a little. Then stir it into your spinach.

For The Yoghurt Egg Wash

Now, we need to make a yoghurt egg wash. We use this in all of our börek dishes that include yufka (or phylllo pastry).

It creates a softer texture and more flavour. And helps the yufka to stick.

The measurements are all roughly equal. No need to worry about being too exact for this.

2 tablespoonfuls of yoghurt (we use Turkish süzme yoghurt but Greek yoghurt will be fine), the same of olive oil and the same of milk.

Then we add one egg and mix it all together to form an emulsion.

Creating Your Rose Börek

We always support out local yufkacı when making börek, and buy our yufka from those people rather than from the supermarket.

If we’re in the area, we’ll go to the yufkacı shop for fresh yufka. Or we’ll buy it from the Fethiye Tuesday market or the Sunday market close to Çalış Beach.

You need two sheets of yufka to make 8 gül böreği. If you’re using phyllo sheets (filo is the same thing), use the large ones so you can cut rough triangular shapes.

On a clean, flat work surface, carefully place a sheet of yufka and fold it in half. Slice it down the middle from the flat edge to the curved edge.

And now take one piece and open it up. Slice down the centre from the flat edge to the curved edge again to create a triangular shape.

If you are using a sheet of phyllo, you need to create a triangle that has a bottom edge roughly 30 centimetres in length.

Use a damp towel or cloth to cover the rest of your pastry sheets so that they don’t dry out.

If you’re using fresh yufka, this isn’t so important but make sure you do this if you’re using yufka or phyllo from a packet, otherwise the pastry will crack when you are trying to create your rose börek shape.

Brush your triangle with the yogurt and egg mixture first of all.

Now, the trick is not to overfill your gül böreği.

We add three heaped teaspoonfuls of spinach and potato filling and scatter it along the bottom edge, leaving a small gap at the base. And at each edge.

Then it’s just a case of rolling a loose, long sausage shape. Keep rolling until you get to the pointed end of the triangle.

Then, you take one end of the sausage shape and carefully start to spiral it around.

And when you get to end, tuck the loose bit of yufka underneath and place on a baking tray.

Repeat this process until you have made your 8 roses.

At this point, you can either use the rest of your yoghurt egg mixture to brush over the top of your gül böreği, or, for a real golden brown topping, you can brush with an egg yolk.

Now top with sesame seeds or nigella seeds (çörek otu) and place in the centre of a preheated oven at 220 degrees Celsius.

Once they’re cooked, leave them to cool to room temperature.

Then you’re ready to delve into your rose börek with potato and spinach – patatesli ısapanaklı gül böreği.

Gül Böreği Recipe – FAQs

Patatesli Ispanaklı Gül Böreği – Recipe For Potato & Spinach Rose Börek

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