Burek recipe

In Bosnia burek means meat and nothing else: raw seasoned beef is laid in a line on hand-stretched jufka, rolled into a thin tube and coiled into a spiral that cooks from the inside out.

1 hour and 20 minutesmedium8 ingredients

Ingredients

• 500 g jufka sheets (or phyllo dough)
• 500 g ground beef
• 2 onions
• 100 ml sunflower oil
• 200 ml water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 500 ml plain drinking yogurt

How to make Burek

1. Mix 500 g of raw ground beef with 2 finely chopped onions, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of black pepper and 200 ml of water. Do not brown it in a pan: the meat cooks inside the burek and its juices soak the pastry.
2. Lay the jufka on a floured cloth, or stack phyllo sheets two by two, and brush them with sunflower oil.
3. Spoon a 3 cm wide line of the raw filling along one long edge, using no more than 2 to 3 tablespoons per sheet.
4. Roll the pastry into a long thin tube, keeping it tight so the filling stays in one line.
5. Coil the first tube in the centre of an oiled round tray and wind the following ones around it to form one continuous spiral.
6. Brush the top with oil and bake at 200°C for 35 to 40 minutes until deep golden.
7. Straight out of the oven, splash 200 ml of hot water over the burek and cover it for 5 minutes so the crust softens.
8. Cut wedges and serve with cold drinking yogurt.

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