Turkish Çörek/Cörek filled bread recipe

This is a recipe that my mother in law teached me when I was in Turkey wich I have modified a bit regarding the fillings but the priciple is the same. The turks makes these very thin and round, a skilled woman as my mother in law is, she can tuck four peices of bread at the same time with a small rolling pin without them getting stuck togheter. The image above shows them a bit light since I tried to bake them in the stone oven at the same time as we did "mjukkaka" right after my parents had done pizza so the oven was too hot and it was the end of the day so no one had the patients to wait for the oven to cool down a bit. It is better to fry them in a pan or shove them in your oven until they are golden brown and crispy.

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Ingredients

250 C 15-20 min until golden brown

4 dl of whey flour

2 1 ml mesuring spoon salt

3 table spoons oil

1 dl kefir

1 dl warm water

  Filling

250 g of minced meat (cow or moose)

2 pcs of garlic

2 pinches of pul biber (can be replaced with a little chili flakes)

2 pinches of köfte spice

1 pinch of salt

4 large potatoes

2 teaspoons of strong red bell pepper paste

1 package of Feta cheese laid in oil

Parsley

Tips! - in Turkish red bell pepper paste is called Salça. A good option is hot pepper paste by Sera, you can usually find it in the foreign section of the store. Otherwise visit your closest oriental supermarket.

Filling

Peel and cook the potatoes in boiling water for 10-20 min. If you chop them roughly they will be ready faster. Remove the water, squash the potato once they are soft. Wash and cop parsley, add it to the mashed potatoe while it is still hot. 

Fry minced meat in a pan with oil until almost golden. Add 2 pcs of pressed garlic, 1 pinch of salt, 2 small spoons of red bell pepper paste, 2 pinches of pul biber and 2 pinches of köfte spice. Add more spices if you want to until reached desired taste.

Make your own feta cheese oil mix to keep in the fridge. Use feta cheese, thyme, garlic, french herbs, oregano and basil togheter with olive oil. Or purchase one from the store. 

Mix the spicy meat, the potatoes and a little feta cheese mixture and your filling is done. You can of course use the fillings separatly if you want many diffrent flavourings like the Turks do or just use one of them. I personally like to mix everything togheter.

Dough

Mix the dry ingredients then add kefir and warm water. The dough is now very loose. Add whey flour to your liking, do not use to much in to the dough since you will use much more flour when you tuck them to prevent them from sticking to the table. The dough should be quite loose but firm. Flatten the bread with a rolling pin. If you are in a hurry make 4-5 flat breads, if you have time to make them thin and many you can make 15 peices out of the same amount of dough. Add the filling, close it and use a fork to seal the edges in a neat way. 

You can always change the filling. The bread will be crisp and should be in the oven 250C for around 15-20 min. They are ready when they are golden brown.

Please let me know what you think if you tried it!