As Maggie Saab, whose family was from Kilis, Armenia (today part of Turkey), taught Lindsay Sterling in Falmouth, MA, in August, 2015.
Cooking Time: 45 minutes (plus thawing something in the fridge over night)
Serves 8-16 as an appetizer or along with a meal
1 box phyllo dough
1 cup shredded mild, unsalty cheese (she preferrs Munster)
1 cup feta cheese
5-6 sprigs parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp oil
1/4 cup sesame seeds
Head's up: you'll need a pastry brush to make this. I recommend clicking on "See How To Do It" at right to see photos of the process. Cooking is a lot easier when you know how things are supposed to look!
The night before you want to cook, thaw the phyllo dough out in the fridge. Ideally, about an hour before cooking put the phyllo on the counter to bring to room temperature before working with it.
Preheat the oven to 375. Melt the butter and add the oil to the butter in a small dish. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Mix the cheeses together with chopped parsley in a medium mixing bowl.
Open the phyllo dough and unroll it so you have a stack of rectangular sheets. Keep a clean towel handy for covering the stack when you're not using it. This keeps the sheets from drying out and breaking.
Take two sheets from the stack at once and place them in front of you with the short end of the rectangle facing you. With a paring knife cut the rectangle in half the long way, making two really tall rectangles.
Brush butter along the edges of each rectangle with the pastry brush. Place a spoonful of cheese mixture at the bottom of each rectangle. Then fold the bottom edge of the phyllo over the filling and line it up with side edge so that you start to form a triangle. Then keep folding the triangle up the phyllo dough. You effectively close in the filling and make each triangle have many layers of pastry. Brilliant! Fold the triangle until you can fold no more. (If you've ever folded a flag into a neat triangle it's the same idea here).
Place your hand burek on the lined cookie sheet. Make as many more as you can with your ingredients. Brush the tops of the burek with the butter/oil and sprinkle sesame seeds on each. Bake them in the oven 'til golden.
Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2015
