Egg Roll Borek
Serves: 6-8 servings
 
Crispy homemade phyllo borek stuffed with egg roll stuffing of cabbage, ground beef, feta and potatoes.
Ingredients
STRUDEL DOUGH
  • 3 cups/450g plain/all purpose organic flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 teaspoon organic vinegar
FILLING
  • 1 medium head cabbage, shredded fine
  • 6 green onions, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon ginger, minced
  • 1 pound/454g ground/minced beef, browned (cooked with garlic, ginger, chilli powder, turmeric)
  • 4 medium potatoes, boiled until tender
  • ½ pound/225g feta cheese, crumbled
  • handful parsley, chopped fine
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 egg and a drizzle of milk to brush on top.
  • If you are going to pour the egg-milk mixture over the top, use ½ cup of milk and an egg.
Instructions
FILLING
  1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the green onions, garlic and ginger until fragrant.
  2. Add the shredded cabbage and toss around until the cabbage is wilted and the liquid evaporates.
  3. Add the ground beef and heat through.
  4. Cool the mixture before adding the potatoes and feta cheese.
  5. Once the cabbage and beef mixture is cool, add the boiled potatoes and feta cheese and mix through making a cohesive filling.
  6. Add parsley and check for salt.
  7. Remember that the feta is salty so be careful adding salt.
  8. Make sure you taste.
PHYLLO DOUGH
  1. In a bowl of a mixer, add the flour and salt and mix.
  2. Add the water, olive oil and vinegar.
  3. Mix to form a soft dough.
  4. Allow the mixer to run with a dough hook for about 5/10 minutes until the dough is smooth and soft.
  5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let sit for an hour or so before rolling.
  6. When it's time to roll, cover a table that you can walk around, with a patterned sheet or tablecloth.
  7. Flour the sheet or tablecloth quite liberally.
  8. Place the dough on the table and start rolling with a pin first.
  9. In between the rolling, use te back of your hands to roll and stretch the dough thin.
  10. I alternate between the rolling pin and pulling by hand.
  11. The edges are easy to pull but sometime the middle works better with a rolling pin,
  12. Just keep rolling and pulling until you get a nice the rectangle.
  13. Walk around the table pulling the dough equally from all sides.
  14. Gravity helps too by pulling the dough to the edge of the table and letting it hang.
  15. You won't be able to get it as thin as a commercial piece of phyllo but the texture of homemade phyllo is incredible.
  16. If you get tears, you can fix it by overlapping and pinching the dough.
  17. Most of the time, the tears will roll up and end up being sealed anyway.
  18. This amount of dough will make a rectangle about 24 inches by 30 inches or so.
  19. When you have pulled it as thin as you can get it, is time to fill.
  20. You should be able to see the pattern of the sheet or tablecloth through the dough.
  21. Trim the thick edges all around the phyllo rectangle using a pizza cutter.
  22. Layer the filling in a log shaped layer along the long end of the rectangle.
  23. Using the sheet, roll over the phyllo dough onto the filling.
  24. Roll the phyllo dough using the sheet to help, by pulling the dough onto itself.
  25. You can use your palms too to roll the borek/strudel tighter.
  26. Once the dough is all rolled up, place in a greased baking sheet or baking pan.
  27. To get the egg roll shape and a crispy texture, keep the roll separated on the baking sheet and brush with egg-milk mixture.
  28. To get a softer texture, you can roll the dough tightly around in a coil and pour over the egg milk mixture before baking.
  29. This will give you more of a pie.
  30. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
Recipe by Coffee and Crumpets at http://www.coffeeandcrumpets.com/egg-roll-borek/