Meat Burek

This is a traditional Serbian/Macedonian pastry dish with various types of fillings. My favourite is the meat burek, however the other fillings mainly consist of cheese and spinach. This recipe is as requested by a good friend of mine from Belgrade.

Ingredients:

For the Pastry:

4 cups of flour

Warm water

pinch of salt and pepper

For the filling:

3 Shallots (diced)

500g Mince beef

Pepper

Salt

2 medium sized potatoes diced into fine cubes

Method:

In a large bowl mix flour, salt and sugar and add water. Knead until you get a smooth soft texture and separate into 3-4 rounds (10cm by 10cm). Leave to stand while you prepare the filling.

In a pan add oil until it gets hot. Add the shallots and toss until they become translucent. Add meat, pepper and salt and mix until just brown. Dice potatoes and leave in a separate bowl.

With a rolling pin make each round of the pastry as wide as possible. Slowly stretch with your fingers (holding from underneath) until your pastry is as big as the dining table, it has to be very thin and almost see through with no holes. This will take practice until perfected.

Along the edge of the pastry add the mince meat mixture and the potato and then roll once or twice. Cut with a knife and roll it either in a circle or as shown above. Add the mixture alongside the edge of the remaining pastry and interchangeably keep on repeating this process.



Place the burek into a large oiled baking tray and bake on 200C for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is nice and golden. Once you take it out of the oven pour with a little bit of water and leave to stand for

10-15 minutes. Serve with a glass of buttermilk, or Greek style yogurt.

Happy Baking :)