Local Turkish Dessert Famous In The Black Sea Coast Turkiye
I prepared a complete Turkish dinner with the local Black Sea Region dishes, "Meat Kavurma", Rice, Apricot Hoshaf, vegetarian Rolled Chard as a side dish, and "Laz Böreği" for dessert. It is a well-known dessert special to the region, has crunchy baklava-like phyllo layers and custard in the middle, simple syrup is poured after it is baked and served freshly. Let's make it. For the custard, I have little less than half a cup granulated sugar, I'm going to use two cups of whole milk and one egg yolk. Whisk everything well until combined and add the rest of the milk. Turn on the heat to medium-high and begin to cook. Whisk continuously, cooking until it thickens and bubbles. For the flavoring, I'm gonna add vanilla beans. You can use vanilla powder or extract. And another interesting thing is, we're gonna use black pepper. That's the traditional way to make it. To give some richness, I'm gonna add about half tbsp butter. Whisk until it is melted turn off the heat and let it cool. For the syrup, I have 1 cup granulated sugar and 3-4 a cup water. Just going to boil for 10 minutes. Drop some lemon juice and let it cool down. Here are my phyllo sheets. It's a 500 grams pack. But we're gonna need only about 250 grams. I'm going to make 20 layers for the bottom and 24 on the top. I also melted 100 grams of butter to fit my 9 to 13-inch pan. I'm cutting from the middle and again after checking cut the excess parts to fit perfectly. You can butter every layer or every two layers with the help of the brush. And after a couple of layers, I'm also using the excess part alternatively and going to fill until I get about 20- 22 layers. Next, we're gonna add the cooled custard or pudding we can say. Spread it evenly and continue to layer 20 more pieces from the phyllo sheets buttering every two layers or a little bit for each layer. My oven is heating to 170-celsius degrees. Make sure to cut before baking otherwise, you cannot get the same result. It can be a little hard. So make sure to use a sharp knife and cut it into squares. And we are ready to bake our "Laz Böreği" until it is a golden color on top and bottom. My syrup is cool completely and I waited about five minutes before I pour my syrup over the "Laz Böreği". It is better if you can rest for about one to two hours. And I would recommend you to eat fresh daily to get the best crunchy top possible. But it will also be good the next day but not that crunchy. It is really very simple and has an interesting flavor with the custard cooked in the middle with the crunchy layers together and the syrup. So I would highly recommend you to try it.