Last Updated on November 13, 2019 by Chef Mireille
Vegetable Bourekas are a Middle Eastern savory treat that is a great Vegetarian option to serve at your holiday party.
Bourekas, also known as borek in some countries are stuffed pastries throughout the Middle East from Turkey to Israel. They are most often stuffed with savory fillings. Usually stuffed inside a short cut pastry or phyllo dough, I did a short cut adapted version by using store bought puff pastry.
I have been focusing on Israeli and other Jewish foods over the past week to celebrate Hanukkah. Eventhough Hanukkah is over, here is another popular Israeli street food that can be served at any holiday party, Borek’s are one of the most popular street foods in Israel with the most common fillings of either meat, potato, spinach or cheese. However, who said we have to stick to these basics. Making bourekas are a great excuse to clean out the refrigerator. I had bits and bobs of different vegetables that needed to be used up and that’s how I came up with this vegetable combination, but you can use whatever vegetables lying in the bin that need to be utilized.
Let’s take a look at some other savory hand pies and ideas for holiday parties – both for Vegetarians and Carnivores!
Party Food Snacks
- Aloo Pies – Caribbean Potato Pies
- Knish – Potato Pies
- Pate – Haitian Codfish Pies
- Pastechi – Dutch Caribbean Meat Pies
- Lobio Vada – Indian Black Eyed Pea Fritters
- Baked Empanadas
- Baked Paneer-Potato-Chickpea Samosas
- Bitterballen – Dutch Vegetable Fritters
- Black Bean Puffs
- Breadfruit Puffs
- Chayote Carrot Tarts
- Dandelion Einkorn Brownie
- Chicken Pakora
- Aardappel Kroketten – Dutch Potato Krokets
IN THE MAKING
A great party pastry or tea time snack!
Vegetable Bourekas
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 thinly sliced onion
- 2 finely chopped garlic cloves
- ½ cup thinly sliced mushrooms
- 1 ½ cups quartered and thinly sliced zucchini
- 5 cups sliced cabbage
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
- 2 teaspoons za’atar
- 3 puff pastry sheets
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons sesame seeds
Instructions
- Defrost puff pastry for 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 425 F. Place a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet and spray with non stick spray.
- In a skillet heat oil. Add onion and sauté until golden brown.
- Add garlic, mushrooms and zucchini. Cook for a few minutes until vegetables soften.
- Add cabbage and cook until very soft, about 5-10 minutes.
- Add parsley, cilantro, za’atar, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook for 1 more minute.
- Dock the pastry by piercing throughout with a fork. (I forgot this step but it will prevent any air bubbles and prevent the pastries from opening up during baking.)
- Cut pastry sheet into 9 squares, 3 across and 3 down.
- Place a little filling on each square. Fold over into a triangle. Using the tines of a fork, press down to seal.
- Transfer to prepared baking sheet.
- Brush tops with milk and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
- Bake for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
This is part of the Bake-a-thon 2017
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Such a fantastic savory pie!…must have tasted awesome and so good to serve for snack..
yes a great snack
We get similar pastry in the market , with a variation of stuffings , I am sure this stuffing must have been a hit .
yes – these can be stuffed with virtually anything
A fabulous vegetable bourekas, i can munch these cuties without any guilt anytime.
yes they are a great snack for anytime and even for breakfast
The filling of cabbage and mushrooms spiked with zaatar is literally playing itself in my head… That puff sounds really delish…
These sound like middle eastern flavored samosas 🙂 Such inviting and tempting snack.
puff pastry is so adaptable – fill it with just about anything and it still works
The vegetarian filling sounds too tempting spiced with zaa’tar inside the puff pockets.
Can these be made ahead, frozen, and reheated? If so, recommended instructions to do so, thanks.
yes. It is best to wrap them individually. Then you can defrost and reheat in a 400 degree oven – probably about 20 minutes would be good.
Thank you so much for your reply to my question. Can’t wait to try these for company.