Cheese Borak + Meat Filling

Firstly I'd like to thank Syrian Foodie for the recipe.

I had loved the Cheese puff I had in Damascus so much I googled around to find the actual name and stumbled upon the link above. Since it was equipped with a recipe and the ingredients looked simple enough, I thought, "Why not give it a go?"

The Pastry:
Flour 2 cups
Boiling water 3/4 cup
Vegetable oil 1/4 cup
Salt 1 tsp

For the filling:
Arabic White cheese (eg: Nabulsi) 200g
Chopped Parsley 30g
Sesame seeds (optional)
Black sesame seeds (optional)
Black pepper

Please see the rest of the instruction at the original website.

Of course there isn't any Arabic cheese to be found. So I had to use the alternative he'd given: equal amounts of Mozarella and Feta cheese.

And yes, just like he said, the dough was very easy to mix....

and because of the oil, it doesn't stick to the rolling pin - much. But I was soooo painstakingly slow at rolling them, it got a bit dry and started to stick.


Nope, I didn't have a pizza cutter either.

Trying to distract / entertain Tufeil with a stray piece of dough


He sampled the Raw dough... and didn't like it.

I had thought he'd like to "play" with it like all the other kids are messing around with home made play dough... to no avail. I knew he would try to EAT it and of course it doesnt taste very nice! hahaha

My Cheese filling

I realise I didnt have chopped parsley and replaced with chopped basil. I hope they are the same! hahaha

In the meantime, T also wanted to pot around in the kitchen.

Finally! My very own pre-fried Borak~!

The result, after 1.5hour on my feet!

Mostly i rolled and folded the pastry 3 times, like is suggested. But I find that The skin is too thick... I couldn't roll thin enough to make it crispier =( But this is TOTALLY MY FIRST TIME playing with any kind of PASTRY!

It didnt come out as salty and tantalizing as the original one I had in Syria. I totally blame the cheese. I WANT THAT ARABIC CHEESE!!!! Where to find???

Since we have a wrongly bought minced Mutton in the fridge, I decided to make use of it. There is actually another recipe called Meat Borak, so that kinda gave me the idea. It got nuts and everything which I don't eat so...

I stir fried the mutton with onion, cumin seeds and salt and pepper.

I realise now I missed out garlic!! haha

And started making ALL of them MEAT borak. instead of just cheese. I had to make another batch of the pastry (the next day) to finish using the filling. Proves how bad my rolling skill is, really!

I suppose it's nice to eat... If a bit sour (Could the cheese have gone bad cause i left it so long outside like 2hours and mixed with the hot mutton?) and very MUAK (er... dull taste?). HAD to eat with chilli sauce. hahahaha

Kak Ly also said it reminded her of Turkish Samsun Pide, except the dough is more like bread in the latter, of course.

All in all, it was exciting to cook something new But I don't see myself making it anytime soon as it took wayyyy too much time and T doesn't really take to it. Perhaps I should have added mushroom to tempt him. hahaha