My Lamb Borekas - olive oil

Method

• Heat olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium low flame.
• Add chopped onion and cook, stirring until onion goes soft, about five minutes.
• Add spices and cook over low heat for another 5 minutes or so.
• Increase flame to medium, adding lamb and pine nuts.
• Cook, stirring and breaking up lamb for about 5 minutes until meat is no longer pink.
• Add salt to taste and set aside to cool.
• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment.
• Unroll phyllo dough onto clean surface, cover with plastic wrap and top with a damp tea towel.
• On a clean work surface lay out one sheet of dough, immediately recovering the pile of unworked dough.
• Using a pastry brush, lightly cover dough with clarified butter.
• Repeat process (phyllo and butter) two more times, stacking sheets of phyllo neatly as you go.
• It is imperative you cover the dough that you arent working with, or it will dry out.
• Cut stack of lightly buttered pastry into three equal strips (lengthwise) and place 1 tablespoon of filling at bottom of each strip.
• Fold the strip as you would for a flag, trimming the ends as necessary.
• Use a light hand, as folding too tight causes the pastry to burst during baking.
• Brush top with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
• Continue until pastry and filling used up.
• Bake the entire batch for 20 minutes.
• Traditionally, the tops of these have an egg wash and are sprinkled with sesame seeds.
• Your call.
• I have successfully used ground beef, ground venison, and ground elk in place of the lamb.
• Just be sure to drain off the excess grease if you are using beef.
• You can make the filling several days in advance.
• You can make the boreks and freeze before baking (add extra time to baking) or you can very successfully freeze them after they are baked.
• They are well worth the effort!