Anyone familiar with Sephardic cooking?

[Eat Dalink, Eat]

For years I have been trying to recreate a recipe my grandmother taught me when I was a kid. She is no longer with us, and my father (I could just kill him) threw away all her recipes (you know, the good old-world jewish ones) thinking no one would want them! Anyway, she made a bunch of Sephardic recipes (my grandfather's family was from Spain)and one of my favorites were spinach boyos. They are made of a yeast dough and filled with spinach, eggs, feta cheese, parmagiano cheese, etc. Anyway, I have found a recipe in a Sephardic cookbook, but can't get the technique down. The are supposed to be small, round and flat on top, however mine always puff. I have tried poking a few holes in the dough "docking" but the inside is too wet and oozes out. The dough is similar to a pizza dough if that helps. Is anyone familiar with these, or anything similar? I know it's a longshot, but thought it was worth a try.
Thanks,
Lisa

[Valerie226]

just a guess. could you flip them over onto the puffy side when it's time to bake them?

[Eat Dalink, Eat]

I don't think that would do it because then that side would puff.
Lisa

[tbb113]

Lisa:

I have a cookbook The Jewish Holiday Cookbook by Gloria Kaufer Greene. She has a sephardic recipe for borekas or burekas which sounds similar, but without the yeast. Here is the recipe for the dough. She gives filling recipes for potato-cheese, eggplant-cheese, spinach-feta. Let me know if you want any of those as well. Hope this helps and is close to what you are looking for

Tyra

Dough
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted and cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup vegetable oil
12 cup lukewarm water
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour, preferably unbleached

For the dough, combine the melted butter, oil, water and salt in a medium-sized bowl and mix well. Gradually stir in the flour to make a soft, slightly greasy dough. Mix only until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl; do not overmix. Gather the dough into a ball and cover it with plastic wrap. Let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes while the filling is prepared. Each filling recipe is sufficient to fill 1 batch of dough.

To make the borekas, shape the dough into about 36 balls, each approximately the size of a small walnut. For each boreka, use your fingertipe to flatten one of the balls on a board or other flat surface until it forms a thin oval approximately 3 by 4 inches. Put 1 tbsp of the filling on one side of the oval; then fold it in half crosswise to cover the filling and form a half-moon shape.

Pinch the edges tightly together and secure them with the tines of a for. Or, to form a decorative, rope-like ("festoon") edge - as most Sephardim do - hold th e pastry in one hand and use the thumb and index finger of the opposite hand to squeeze a bit of the edge and then fold it up toward the pastry on a slight angle. Begin at one sie of the pastry and move continously around to the other.

Put the borekas about 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Brup the top of each one with the egg glaze (1 large egg beaten with 1 tsp water). If desired, sprinkle the tops lightly with sesame seeds or grated cheese. Pric each boreka once with a fork to allow steam to escape.

Bake the borekas in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until they are golden brown and crisp. (Borekas may be frozen after baking. Reheat them, unthawed, in a 375 degree oven unitl hot throughout. Serve the borekas hot or at room temperature.

Makes about 36 3-inch borekas.

There is a variation for the dough as well. Omit the melted butter and add 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 1/2 cup grated kaskaval, kasseri, Parmesan, or Roman cheese to the dough. Proceed as above.