Potato bourekas sold in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.
You can enjoy a taste of Israel both before and after your trip with recipes from Israel Celebration Tours.
Today’s recipe is Bourekas. Bourekas are delicious Middle Eastern pastries filled with potatoes, mushrooms, cheese, or meat. You will find these stuffed pastries in Israel and throughout the Middle East. They may have originated in Turkey, or been brought by Sephardi Jews from Spain. In fact, you’ll find stuffed pastries the world over, though they are known by different names and have regional variations: empanadas, knishes, calzones, samosas, bridies, pirogi, momos, and strudel. Here is a recipe for the Middle Eastern version:
Mushroom and Potato Bourekas
(Approximately 45 minutes)
Ingredients
- Potatoes: 5-6 medium red potatoes, boiled or microwaved until just tender OR 4-5 large Russet or baking potatoes
- 1 medium sweet or yellow onion, chopped finely
- 16 ounces of mushrooms brushed clean and thinly sliced and chopped: Portobello OR white mushrooms
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- Additional 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika or more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper or more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste
- 1-pound puff pastry sheets (for example, 1 box of Pepperidge Farms puff pastry sheets); if frozen, allow 20 minutes for dough to defrost
- 1 egg, beaten
- Water to paste seams of dough together
- 2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
- Parchment paper
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