Kosovo Day 1: Making Burek

Yesterday was Kosovo's first full day as a country. What better way for me to help Kosovo usher in a new era than by making burek?

Burek, burek, burek, how I do love thee. Of course, I didn't do it by myself. I was fortunate to have a Kosovar co-chef who walked me through the steps.

First we mixed 1.5 kg of flour with 3 heaping teaspoons of salt and about 1/2 C oil in a large bowl. Then we added about 1 litre of water and mixed it up until a big ball of dough was formed.



After the dough was finished, we wrapped it in a plastic bag and left it to rest. Next we started making the filling. We sauteed three diced onions with oil and salt. Then we added a kilogram of hamburger meat, cooked that, then added a dash of tomato sauce and red pepper at the end.



While the filling cooled, we started the process of rolling out the dough. Burek is made up of flaky layers, much like a croissant. First we rolled out 12 little rounds of dough. Then we took one piece of flattened dough, slathered it with melted oil and butter, then put another round of dough on top of it. By doing this, we ended up with three piles of flattened dough, each with four well-buttered/oiled layers.

After all the doughs were rolled out and stacked, we took one pile of dough (about the size of what I've rolled out above) and stretched it over the entire table. When making burek, you want to get your layers as thin as possible. What we're stretching out over the table is the four-layered dough.

After the dough was stretched as thinly as possible, I spread some of the filling sparingly onto the sheets of dough. Each of the sheets made about 3 bureks.

When the bureks were rolled and placed in a U-shape on a greased cookie sheet, we waited for the power to come back on then baked them at 250 C for about 25 minutes (until the tops and bottoms were nice and crispy).

Man...these were tasty. However, now that I know how much oil and butter go into each burek, I'll certainly be eating them sparingly. I brought leftovers home to my landlord and he was impressed with both the thinness of the dough and the tastiness of the filling. Score!

I'd been quite curious about how to make burek. I'm very glad I had my chance! Yum.