YAK TRACKS: A breakout recipe for YAK BOREK

Thanks to our neighbor Jeannie Elias for passing this on!

Adapted from Contemporary Turkish Cooking
By Filiz Zorulu

Yak Borek
8 sheets phyllo dough (must be thawed)
(Phyllo dough tears easily, but ignore that and keep working!)
¼ lb. (1 stick) butter (melted)
1 egg (beaten, in a small bowl)
1 recipe Yak filling

Yak Filling
4 TB olive oil
1 medium onion chopped
4 garlic cloves
1 lb ground yak meat
3 TB tomato paste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Butter a ten inch quiche or tart pan
3. Heat olive oil in frying pan.
4. Add garlic to pan and allow to become fragrant for 30-60 seconds.
5. Add onions to pan and allow to soften 3-4 minutes.
6. Add ground yak to pan and cook until all pink is gone.
7. Add tomato paste to pan and turn pan off and allow to cool.

Assembly

1. Lay a sheet or two of aluminum foil on a counter to make a work surface that is bigger that the dimensions of the phyllo dough.
2. Lay one sheet of dough on foil, with widest edge toward you, brush with butter.
3. Lay second sheet of dough on foil.
4. Place one quarter of the yak mixture in a long line at the bottom of the wide side of the dough, the side closest to you.
5. Starting from the edge with the meat on it, carefully roll the phyllo, jelly roll style, or like you are rolling a cigar, roll it away from you, so that you end up with a cylinder of phyllo wrapped around your yak mixture.
6. Brush your cylinder with butter.
7. Now roll this first cylinder pinwheel fashion and place it in the quiche or tart pan. Be gentle and careful with the dough, but don’t fret. So what if it tears, it will still taste great.
8. Repeat steps 2-6 and then take the next yak filled phyllo cylinder to continue the pinwheel pattern in your pan.
9. Repeat step 8 twice more. You will ultimately make 4 cylinders and keep curling them around each other.
10. Brush finished Yak Borek with beaten egg.
11. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes.

You will almost certainly be the only family on the block, or person at your Pot Luck eating Yak Borek!!! Thanks to the Vermont Yak Company!!!