Spinach Rolls with Lentil Dip

This is a Turkish method to serve filled pastry. The dough is Yufka or Filo pastry. You can buy it here at the large Supermarkets or at the Turkish grocery stores.

It is a recipe from German Chef Hans Gerlach that was released in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (newspaper) .

It is a bit of work to prepare everything. I needed 1 1/2 hours for it. I cooked the lentils first. I had blonde lentils from France and they needed 30 min cooking time. Then they need to cool down, so spread them out on a plate.

I bought a huge bag of fresh spinach, not the baby spinach version but the strong leaves. Here you have to rip off all the stalks and that takes a bit of time. Then you have to wash the leaves at least twice. Who wants sand in the dish?

I used my widest pan and a big clove of garlic and 1 tbsp olive oil and wilted the spinach down, first minute with a lid on, then without the lid. Seasoned it with salt, pepper and a lot of nutmeg and squeezed half a lemon over it. When the spinach was properly wilted, I put it into a colander and squeezed as much liquid out as possible. No one wants a soggy roll.

Next came the rest of the filling. I chopped the walnuts and the dates and took a teaspoon of marinated red peppercorns out of the jar. The original recipe calls for green peppercorns, but I don´t like them. A heaped teaspoon of white Miso paste came next. It is not easy to mix the Miso paste with the other stuff and it takes a while until everything is smooth and combined.
I chopped the spinach and added it to the mix and formed some kind of sausage rolls with 2 cm diameter and 10 cm length.

Next came the yufka. Take one leaf and spray it with olive oil or brush it. Sprinkle it lightly with breadcrumbs. Set a second one on top and repeat.
Take a knife or pizza cutter and make 3 strips about 10 cm wide. You get 3 out of regular dough.
One spinach roll on the bottom of the strip and tightly rolled and at the end with wet fingers close the dough.

Put enough oil into a large pan to shallow fry the rolls until golden brown and crispy all over. Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with fleur de sel. Takes about 5 - 6 min.

Take the cooled lentils and mix them with Greek yogurt, bunch of chopped dill and Zataar and Sumac and salt and pepper. When you do not use full fat (10%) yogurt, add 1 tbsp of olive oil.

Ingredients:
500 g coarse spinach leaves
1 large garlic clove
100 ml olive oil
1/2 lemon juiced
1 heaped tsp white Miso
50 g walnuts
50 g dates pitted
1 tsp rose peppercorns
salt and pepper
nutmeg
4 Yufka dough leaves
3 tbsp breadcrumbs
Fleur de Sel

Dip:
100 g cooked blonde lentils ( about 65 g dried)
200 g Greek full fat yogurt
bunch of dill
1 tsp Zataar
1/4 tsp Sumac
salt and pepper