Yugoslavian Burek Recipes

TRADITIONAL ROLLED BUREK (BOREK) RECIPE

Steps:

• Gather the ingredients.
• Heat a large frying pan over medium-low to medium heat and add the oil.
• Sauté the onion until soft and then add the ground beef, allspice , paprika , salt , and pepper to taste.
• Cook until the meat is crumbly but not dry. Cool completely before you continue. While ground beef mixture is cooling, preheat oven to 375 F.
• Once cooled, lay one sheet of phyllo dough on the counter. Keep the remaining sheets of phyllo dough covered with a damp kitchen towel, and work quickly to prevent it from drying out.
• Brush sheet with some of the melted butter. Place a heaping 1/3 cup of meat mixture on the sheet along the long side, 2 inches from the edge.
• Fold the bottom over the meat mixture and roll into a snake shape. Cut the roll in half and coil each roll into a snail shape.
• Place rolled dough and ground beef pinwheel on a nonstick baking sheet and butt the end up against the edge of the pan to prevent uncoiling. Brush with additional butter. Continue until you've used all the ground beef.
• Bake in a preheated oven 15 to 20 minutes or until just golden. A hint for handling phyllo dough: Be sure the dough is at room temperature before you open the box. Place the sheets of dough on a large cookie sheet and cover them with plastic wrap and then a heavy towel. In this way, they will not dry out while you are working with them. Work fast for best results and do not have the butter too hot when brushing the dough. Recipe Source: The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors by Jeff Smith (Wm Morrow) Reprinted with permission.

BUREK

Steps:

• Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
• Brown ground beef in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain fat; stir in allspice, paprika, salt, and pepper. Transfer beef to a large bowl and stir in potato and onion.
• Unroll phyllo pastry and transfer 2 sheets to a work surface; stack sheets. Spoon 1/8th of the ground beef mixture down one long edge of the phyllo pastry. Roll phyllo into a tube, encasing beef. Shape the tube into a coil (snail shape). Place the roll on an ungreased baking sheet; brush with melted butter. Repeat, placing finished rolls up against one another to keep them from unrolling.
• Bake burek in the preheated oven until golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes.

YUGOSLAVIAN BUREK

Steps:

• Heat a large frying pan and add the oil.
• Saute the onion until soft, and then add the beef, spices, and salt and pepper to taste.
• Cook until the meat is crumbly but not dry.
• Cool completely before you continue.
• Lay 1 sheet of phyllo dough on the counter.
• Brush with some of the butter.
• Place a heaping 1/3 cup of meat mixture acrosss the sheet along the long side, 2 inches from edge.
• Fold the bottom over the meat mixture and roll into a snake shape.
• Cut the roll in half and coil each roll into a snail shape.
• Place on a nonstick baking sheet and butt the end up against the edge of the pan to prevent uncoiling.
• Brush with additional butter.
• Bake in a prheated oven at 375 degrees for 15-20 min or until just golden.
• Keep the remaining sheets of phyllo dough covered with plastic, and work quickly to prevent in from drying out.

POTATOE BUREK - BOSNIAN POTATOE SPIRALS

Steps:

• Heat oil in a non stick pan and add small potatoe cubes. Let fry until they are crispy and brown.
• After a couple of minutes (before potatoe cubes go brown) add onion and garlic. Don't let them burn.(you can add a bit of water to prevent that from happening).
• Add allspice, salt and pepper to taste.
• Butter a dish/pyrex/ with one TB of meltet butter.
• Take one phyllo sheet, brush with meltet butter, and put another pastry sheet on top of it.
• Place potatoe filling on one end of the phyllo sheets.
• Roll up like a cigar and form a spiral.
• Do so with the rest of sheets and filling.
• Place burek spirals into form and brush with the rest of the melted butter.
• Let bake at 180°C until golden, crispy (about 15 to 20 minutes).
• Enjoy with salad and/or yoghurt sauce.