Vegan Turkish Rolled Pastry with Spinach (Cigarette Borek)

When it comes to Turkish specialties, we've already shown you one or two recipes – our vegan pide with minced meat or a Turkish pizza with herb yogurt sauce, for example. Today, we're showing you another classic that's perfect for your next party buffet or makes a delicious snack between meals.

Turkish "sigara böreği" are filled, and usually deep-fried dough rolls that can be bought in many Turkish shops. The filling usually consists of minced meat, spinach and cheese or potatoes. So, it's not necessarily vegan, although the triangular yufka pastry sheets do manage without any animal ingredients; cool!

In theory, you can fill the yufka dough sheets with whatever you have on hand. However, for a quick and easy version that you can bring to your next party, we'll show you a classic spinach filling that doesn't require many ingredients. We also simply put them in the oven after filling – this makes them super crispy. You can buy yufka dough sheets in many Turkish, but also in many regular supermarkets. The only difference is usually the shape, which is no longer triangular but square. Depending on the size of the square sheets, it makes sense to cut the sheets in half lengthways. Otherwise, you will end up with a very long cigar börek that is difficult to eat later. The optimum length is around 10–15 centimeters. But don't worry, because the shape of the leaves doesn't affect this delicious snack at all. Speaking of shape: We also have a recipe for vegan börek roll with spinach and artichoke cream if you'd like a slightly more unusual shape.