Börek (also burek and other variants) is a family of baked or fried filled pastries made of a thin flaky dough known as phyllo (or yufka). It can be filled with cheese, often feta, sirene or kaşar; minced meat, or vegetables. Most probably invented in what is now Modern Turkey, in the Anatolian Provinces of the Ottoman Empire in its early era, to become a popular element of Ottoman cuisine. A börek may be prepared in a large pan and cut into portions after baking, or as individual pastries. The top of the börek is often sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Börek is also very popular in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, especially in North Africa and throughout the Balkans. The Northern Slavic cuisines, historically developed by people living in close contact with the Turkic peoples of Asia and Europe, also feature derivatives of the börek. Börek is also part of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish traditions. They have been enthusiastically adopted by the Ottoman Jewish communities, and have been described, along with boyos de pan and bulemas, as forming "the trio of preeminent Ottoman Jewish pastries".
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