Thin börek rolls filled with slices of pastırma — Turkey's spiced air-cured beef — and melting kaşar cheese, often with strips of green pepper and tomato, then pan-fried until the pastry is crisp and the cheese runs. Wrapped in yufka and fried rather than baked, it is served hot in short lengths as a meyhane meze. It sits apart from the cheese-only sigara böreği by leaning on the pungent, fenugreek-coated pastırma.
Paçanga böreği is a meze of the Istanbul meyhane, built around pastırma, the heavily spiced cured beef most associated with the city of Kayseri. It is a relatively modern tavern dish rather than an old palace recipe, its appeal resting on frying thin yufka pastry around the cured meat until crisp. It is distinct from sigara böreği, which is filled with white cheese and herbs and contains no meat, and from Laz böreği, a Black Sea sweet pastry — the pastırma filling is what defines paçanga.
The fried yufka shatters at the first bite, giving way to ribbons of pastırma — salty, dense and intensely aromatic from its çemen coat of fenugreek, garlic and red pepper — and a pull of molten kaşar. Where pepper and tomato are added, they bring a little juice and freshness against the richness. Best eaten straight from the pan while the cheese still stretches and the pastry is at its crispest.
Pastırma is already cured and dried, so brief frying is only to warm it through and crisp the wrapper; cook it long and the lean meat turns tough and the spice paste scorches. Kaşar is a semi-hard cheese that melts cleanly into strings rather than splitting into oil and curd, which is why it is chosen over crumblier cheeses. Frying in shallow oil rather than baking gives the thin yufka its blistered, glassy crunch and renders the pastry's surface fat for flavour.
Variations
The classic filling is pastırma and kaşar, sometimes with green pepper and tomato; some versions add a brush of tomato paste. Rolls may be folded as cigars or triangles, and a few cooks bake rather than fry for a lighter result, though pan-frying is traditional. Sucuk is occasionally used in place of pastırma.
On the Palate
Where Paçanga Böreği sits in the Turkish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
6 steps · 30 min
- 15 min
Cut yufka pastry into wide triangles or rectangles.
- 25 min
Lay slices of pastırma and kaşar near one edge, adding strips of green pepper and tomato if using.
- 35 min
Fold in the sides and roll up tightly into a cigar, sealing the end with a little water.
Watch outRoll it tight and dab the tail with water to seal — a loose or open roll lets the melting kaşar leak out and spit in the oil.
- 43 min
Heat a shallow layer of oil in a pan over medium heat.
- 57 min
Fry the rolls turning once until both sides are deep golden and crisp and the cheese has melted.
Watch outFry brisk and short until deep golden and the cheese just runs — the pastırma is already cured, so long frying only toughens the lean meat and scorches the spice crust.
- 62 min
Drain briefly, cut into short lengths, and serve hot.
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