Instructions

1. Place a splash of olive oil in a frying pan and brown the minced beef over medium heat, stirring until the meat comes apart into smaller grains.
2. In a separate pan, soften the onion and garlic in about 15 grams of the butter, cooking over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the cinnamon, cumin and pul biber (or chilli flakes) as well as a decent pinch of salt and several grinds of black pepper. Add the beef to the onion mixture and cook together for five minutes.
3. Taste this mixture and adjust the seasonings to your liking, adding more of the spices as required. At this stage you can also add in your extra ingredients such as pine nuts and currants, if you so desire.
4. Stir in the chopped parsley along with 100 ml water. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes and then remove from the heat, setting aside to cool.
5. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200˚C and melt the remaining butter, using this to grease a large baking sheet.
6. Remove the filo pastry from its packet, remembering to defrost this first if you are dealing with frozen pastry. Take one sheet from the pile and cover the rest with a slightly damp cloth as the pastry will dry out very quickly.
7. Lay the sheet out so one of the longest sides is facing you and cut it in half, leaving you with two rectangles. Brush with melted butter, then fold each in half, longest side to longest side, leaving you with two narrow oblongs. Brush with butter again.
8. Place a heaped tablespoon of the meat mixture just below the top right-hand corner of the pastry on one of the oblongs. Bring the top left corner of the pastry down, diagonally over the meat, to touch the right-hand side of the pastry, forming a triangle over the filling. Do the same again from the top right-hand corner, this time picking up the meat in its pocket of pastry too. Brush with butter again. Continue to fold like this, zig-zagging all the way down the pastry oblong, folding diagonally across until you reach the end of the pastry. You need to fold at least 4 times to seal the filling in completely. Brush the last flap with butter to seal and trim off any overhanging pastry if it is too short to fold again.
9. Place on the baking sheet while you finish the rest of the borek parcels. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown all over and serve hot with natural yoghurt or a leafy Greek salad.