Sarajevo-style Burek
While this may seem like an intimidating bake, this step by step recipe will guide through the process of making a traditional Sarajevo-style burek, with flaky pasty and a flavoursome beef or potato filling.
Introduction
I am watching Mersiha Kevelj-Panjeta chop her homegrown tomatoes. She does it the Balkan way, with a small vintage paring knife with a wooden handle worn perfectly to the shape of her hand, which she moves deftly around a tomato held in the other hand. As the blade ends on the thumb, perfect pyramid shaped pieces of tomato fall in the decorative floral plate below to be joined by onions, a little oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. This salad will accompany the dolma and burek we made together. We are waiting for the burek to finish baking. It is taunting us with its aroma. Mersiha checks it and spoons a little water and butter mixture over it for the last few minutes of baking. I steal a tomato piece. Then another. Mersiha laughs knowingly. They taste incredible. Mersiha and her husband Mustafa grow them in the garden of their home, where they also run Bosnian cooking lessons. Earlier, I had admired that year’s bounty – most of it now either turned into winter preserves or stored in Mersiha’s perfectly organised freezer: bags of young Swiss chard, small light green bell peppers ready for dolma, tomatoes, herbs, everything. Mustafa and my husband, Peter, are discussing Bosnian winemaking in the background while sampling an exceptional one. I tell Mersiha that cooking with her feels like I have found family I never knew I had. As I look out of the window of their home, night is enveloping the peaks of the wild mountains that surround Sarajevo, and below, the city starts to glimmer with lights. I want to ask them about their experience of the war, the siege, the aftermath. But these questions break somewhere around the region of my heart before I can voice them, and anyway, I feel the answer to these unspoken questions. They survived. As did Sarajevo because of the resilience and sacrifice of its people. Instead, we sit, break burek together and speak of happier things.
Many people in Bosnia and Herzegovina will say that the only pastry that may be called burek is one filled with meat, onion and seasoning and made using the technique in this recipe, while across the rest of the Balkans, this recipe is also thought of as pita so meso (pita with meat). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, this pastry technique combined with any other filling warrants the name of pita so… (pita with…) the relevant filling, or is named after the filling, as in the previous recipe. A pita filled with krumpir or krompir (potato) is known as krompiruša (see second filling option). It is famously heavy on the black pepper but use white pepper if you prefer a gentler, earthier heat.
Ingredients
| 425g (15 oz/scant 3½ cups) | strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting |
| ½ tsp | fine sea salt |
| 2 tbsp | sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing and brushing |
| 250 ml (8 fl oz/1 cup) | lukewarm water |
| 10g (½ oz) | unsalted butter |
| 50 ml (1¾ fl oz/3½ tablespoons) | boiling water |
| cold drinking yoghurt, to serve | |
| For the meat filling: | |
|---|---|
| 500 g (1 lb 2 oz) | minced (ground) beef or veal |
| 1 | onion, grated or very finely chopped |
| 2 | garlic cloves, very finely chopped |
| 1 tsp | sunflower oil |
| 1 tsp | vegetable bouillon powder |
| ½ tsp | sea salt flakes |
| ¼ tsp | ground black pepper |
| For the potato filling: | |
| 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) | waxy potatoes, peeled, coarsely grated and water squeezed out |
| 1 | onion, finely chopped |
| 10 g (½ oz) | chives, finely chopped (optional) |
| 1 tsp | sunflower oil |
| 1 tsp | vegetable bouillon powder |
| ½ tsp | sea salt flakes |
| ½ tsp | ground black pepper (or white pepper), or more to taste |
Method
Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the oil and water, then use a fork (or your hands) to bring the mixture together into a shaggy dough. Tip out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface (scraping out the sides of the bowl) and knead for 5–6 minutes until you have a smooth dough. Shape into a ball, return to the bowl, then brush the top with oil, cover and set aside to rest in a warm place for at least 30 minutes.
Next, prepare your filling of choice. For the meat filling, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and knead the mixture with your hand until well combined, then set aside. For the potato filling, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix together until well combined. Drain any excess moisture, then set aside.
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan (425°F) and line a large baking sheet with baking parchment.
Working in a warm room (ideally around 24°C/75°F, but at least 21°C/70°F), cover a large table with a clean cotton tablecloth. Lightly dust a section of the tablecloth with flour and tip out the dough onto it. The dough should feel elastic. Give the dough a gentle knead and shape it back into a ball. Dust the top of the dough with flour, then dust an oklagija (long, thin rolling pin) with flour if you have one, or a regular rolling pin if you don’t, and slowly start to roll out the dough, always pushing from the middle outwards to the edges, into as large a circle as you can (at least 50–60 cm/20–24 inches diameter). Brush the top of the dough with oil, making sure you cover all of it, then let it rest for 10–15 minutes.
Once rested, gently lift one side of the dough and, using the palm of your hand, gently start to stretch the dough from the middle outwards. Work slowly and use the balls of your fingertips, not your nails. Work all the way around the dough until it is paper-thin and practically transparent. Don’t worry if there are one or two little rips here and there, but if you are getting too many, pause, brush the dough with a little more oil and let it rest for 5–10 minutes before you continue hand-stretching. The dough should reach the edge of your table and overhang, creating a rectangle roughly 100 x 80 cm (31/4 x 21/2 feet). Use your fingertips to either stretch the edges or slightly trim any doughier overhanging pastry.
Place a line of filling along one of the longer edges of the dough and then, using the edge of the tablecloth, gently roll it over itself 2–3 times. Cut off the roll from the rest of the sheet with a knife, and then swirl it, seam side down, into a spiral and place on the prepared baking sheet (it’s easiest if you swirl it directly on the baking sheet). Repeat with the remaining dough and filling, swirling the pastry rolls around to fill the baking sheet. Brush the top of the burek spiral with oil and use your hand to flick a little water (no more than 1 tablespoon) over the burek and baking sheet. Transfer to the oven to bake for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the butter in the boiling water. After 20 minutes of cooking time, remove the burek from the oven and reduce the temperature to 180°C fan (400°F). Drizzle half the water and butter mixture over the burek, then return it to the oven to bake for a further 15 minutes until golden brown. Turn the oven off, drizzle the rest of the water and butter mixture over the burek, and allow the burek to rest for 5 minutes in the warm oven before serving with a glass of cold drinking yoghurt.
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