Boil 4 potatoes, peel them, and while still hot, add 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 dessert spoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 1 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper flakes, and 100 g of grated kaşar cheese. Mash everything together thoroughly.
In a bowl, whisk 2 eggs with 1 water glass of milk. Add 1 tea glass of vegetable oil and half a water glass of water, then mix everything together.
Lay 1 sheet of yufka on a baking tray and brush it generously with the egg-milk mixture. Repeat this one by one for all 5 sheets of yufka. Trim the yufka sheets hanging over the edges of the tray. Set aside the strips trimmed from the long sides of the tray. Tear the strips trimmed from the short sides into pieces and place them in the tray. Pour more of the mixture over them. Spread the prepared potato filling evenly on top. Use the long-side yufka strips to form long twisted rolls, arranging them in a lattice pattern on top. Brush the remaining egg-milk mixture over the lattice. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C (390°F) until the tops are golden brown. Enjoy!

About This Recipe

As a nation, we absolutely love this type of pastry — dough or yufka layered with all kinds of fillings and baked in many different forms. This love of ours dates back to the Ottoman Empire. Traveler Evliya Çelebi recorded more than twenty varieties of börek made and consumed outside Istanbul, especially in smaller towns, in his travel notes. This shows just how widespread börek culture was throughout the empire. Among the Ottoman Empire's varieties of börek (savory layered pastry), the most common was chicken börek. The preferences of the palace kitchens in the capital were nearly identical to those of provincial kitchens. Coming in second place was partridge börek.

The pastry we know as börek is called "pirog" by Central Asian Turkmens, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, and Russians. While Greeks refer to it as "bureki" and "pita," Iranians use the terms "burek" and "burak." In Persian, the word "bure" is used to describe an Iranian stew. For this reason, some Kurds use the name "borek" while others use "börek." In truth, there is no definitive information about the origin of the word börek — it has either never been fully clarified or has been written about with insufficient evidence. Some Turkish dictionaries note that the word börek derives from the verb "burmak" (to twist), which is how it came to be called by that name.

We are fortunate to have quite a few börek varieties that have been passed down from our grandmothers to our mothers, from our mothers to us, and from us to future generations. Some, like Ground Meat and Spinach Open Börek, are a little labor-intensive to make but absolutely legendary in flavor, while others, like our Rosebud Börek recipe, are quick and incredibly delicious. Today we have prepared yet another wonderful treat for you — our Lattice Börek with Potato Filling recipe, which you simply won't be able to stop eating. Enjoy in advance!