Chebureki ( Cheburek) are deep-fried turnovers with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions. A popular street dish, they are made with a single round piece of dough folded over the filling in a crescent shape. They have become widespread in the former Soviet-aligned countries of Eastern Europe in the 20th century.
Chebureki is a national dish of Crimean Tatar cuisine. They are popular as a snack and street food throughout the Caucasus, West Asia, Central Asia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe, as well as in Turkey, Greece and Romania.
A cheburek is a half-round-shaped , filled with a very thin layer of ground beef, poultry meat, lamb or basically any ground meat which has been seasoned with ground onion and black pepper.
The dough is made of flour, water (usually of a baker percentage of ~50%), salt, and oil. It is soft and pliable, but not sticky. It is separated into small balls and each is rolled out with a thin rolling pin. Additional flour is added only as needed to prevent the dough from sticking.
The meat fill is layered thinly enough that it will cook fully in the sealed half-moon pocket.
Finally, the whole is fried in oil (usually sunflower oil or corn oil) until the dough becomes golden.
Among Crimean Tatars, the pastry is referred to as à Âñrbörek, ÃÂiborek, and other phonologically similar derivations of these words. From old-Turkic, börek means pastry, and the à Âñr- morpheme is an onomatopoeia of the sizzling sounds created while frying the pastry. The âÂÂÃÂi-â part derives from the Turkic word âÂÂiçâ meaning âÂÂinsideâ or âÂÂwithinâ as the stuffing is inside/within the cooked bread.
In modern Turkish, the name is written as çiàbörek, a corruption of the Crimean Tatar name based on a false etymology associating the first part of the name with ', literally meaning "raw." In contrast to dishes such as çiàköfte (raw meatballs), çiàbörek is a cooked dish that more closely resembles içli köfte. It is very popular, especially in Eskià Âehir.