Bosnian · snack

Burek (Hand-Rolled Meat Pita)

Burek (Hand-Rolled Meat Pita) reads umami 4.6, richness 4.5 and salinity 4.4 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Bosnian snack, about 2 hr 10 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 5.1 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 1.9 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 0.6 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.0 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 5.1 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 4.2 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 4.6 · Richness 4.5 · Salinity 4.4 · Allium 3.9 · Nutty 2.0 · Sweetness 1.9 · Warm Spice 1.9 · Bitterness 0.9 · Heat 0.8 · Earthy 0.6 · Sourness 0.6 · Herbaceous 0.6

What's in it (11)

• bread flour — 500 g
• water — 300 g
• salt — 10 g
• sunflower oil — 14 g
• sunflower oil — 138 g
• boneless beef chuck — 700 g
• onions — 300 g
• salt — 9 g
• freshly ground black pepper — 7 g
• cold water — 60 g
• sour milk — 500 g

Time & effort: about 2 hr 10 min (1 hr 30 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 139.2 kcal, 7.7 g protein, 5 g fat, 15.6 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (10 steps)

1. Mix the flour, warm water, 10 g salt and 15 ml oil and knead for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth, slack and satiny. It should be softer than a bread dough; that softness is what lets it stretch.
2. Divide into four balls, roll each in some of the 150 ml oil, set them on a plate, cover, and leave them 40 minutes at room temperature. Oiled resting relaxes the gluten far better than flouring does.
3. Make the filling raw. Combine the beef, onion, 9 g salt, black pepper and the 60 ml cold water and mix for 3 minutes. Nothing is pre-cooked. The water and the onion juice steam inside the pastry and are the reason a good burek runs when you cut it.
4. Cover a large table with a cloth and flour it lightly. Take one ball and press, then coax it outward with the backs of your hands until the sheet is thin enough to read newsprint through. Work from the middle out and let gravity over the table edge do half the job. This takes about 15 minutes for the first sheet and less for the others.
5. Smear the sheet with oil, then lay a rope of filling in a line about 5 cm in from the near edge. Lift the cloth and let it roll the pastry over the filling into a long rope, and trim off the bare pastry at the far edge.
6. Oil a 30 cm round pan. Coil the rope from the centre outward like a snail, laying each turn just touching the last. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
7. Bake at 220C for 35 to 40 minutes, until the coil is deep brown and blistered and the pan is loud with sizzling fat.
8. Brush the top with a little water and cover with a cloth for 5 minutes. This softens the crust from a shatter to a chew, which is how it is eaten in Sarajevo.
9. Cut in wedges and serve with cold sour milk. Burek is breakfast, or it is what you eat standing up at four in the morning.
10. Substitutions: thin drinking yogurt can stand in for the sour milk.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Okra-Sausage Jambalaya — Southern
• Kotleti — Russian
• Frikadeller (Pan-Fried Pork and Veal Patties) — Danish
• One-Pan Chicken Alfredo Skillet — Italian-American
• Croquetas de Jamon (Ham Croquettes) — Cuban

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.