A Turkish delight

April 21, 2009 3:04 PM

Help me identify a Mediterranean dish that is like a pie made of feta and noodles.

I used to go to a Mediterranean grocery store/deli on Long Island which was run by (I think) Turkish people. You could buy stuffed grape leaves and other familiar Mediterrean dishes, but they used to have this round "pie" that was made of pasta and feta. It was definitely not made of Phyllo dough- it consisted of a heavy lasagna-like pasta. It was fabulous, but no amount of Googling has turned it up. Can anyone tell me what it is?

posted by acrasis to food & drink (9 answers total)

I doubt this is it, but the only pasta I can think of from my trips to Greece is pastitsio... Now I'm curious, because it sounds delicious.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 3:08 PM on April 21, 2009

Pastichio? If that's not it, is there anything in there aside from pasta and feta?
posted by wondermouse at 3:08 PM on April 21, 2009

Not pastitsio, at least as I've eaten it at Greek restaurants and festivals. And there were really no other ingredients except the pasta (layered), feta, olive oil, and herbs. I wish I had asked what it was called, but the workers rarely spoke English. I would point at what I wanted.
posted by acrasis at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2009

Is it Su Böreği (Water Pastry)? Cause it sure sounds like it.

(Found by googling "turkish lasagna," for future reference).
posted by dersins at 3:37 PM on April 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

That looks exactly like it! Your Google-fu is better than mine, dersins. Thanks! I'm going to make this.
posted by acrasis at 3:55 PM on April 21, 2009

Oh man, make enough for everyone. That sounds delicious.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 4:02 PM on April 21, 2009

Word to the wise - it's very hard to make properly because you have to roll out the dough very thin. My grandma cheated with either premade lasagna noodles or frozen fillo dough. Googling "mock sou boereg" yields tricks used by lazy Armenians; I assume the results for "mock su boregi" would be similar, but with tricks used by lazy Turks. Two peoples, divided by history, seem to have come up with a number of very similar cheats to get delicious sou-boereg without having to work too hard for it.

A related food, boereg, puts the same cheese-parsley mixture into a fillo dough triangle - like spanakopita without the spinach. It might be a little easier.
posted by crinklebat at 7:25 PM on April 21, 2009

Actually, here's more than you ever wanted to know.
posted by crinklebat at 7:29 PM on April 21, 2009

Follow-up! It took me three tries to get this right. The second time I use pre-made dough, but it lacked that homemade noodle oomph. Last night I used coarse-ground semolina flour, didn't worry as much as the author of that recipe did about the thinness of the dough, and added some garlic: perfect! Preparing the materials only took about half an hour; the problem was all the space for rolling the dough, the filling, and having the pans of hot and cold water! Cooking the thing took 45 minutes.
posted by acrasis at 5:20 PM on May 18, 2009