In this extract from Lonely Planet’s The World’s Best Street Food, Guardian picked of street eats across the globe, and among them is BiH popular meal – burek.
Guardian describes it as crisp yet moist, hearty yet subtly spiced, burek is the Balkan street food. Filo pastry is filled with aromatic minced meat, spinach (zeljanica), or cheese and herbs (sirnica), then rolled, glossed with butter or olive oil and baked till golden. Burek can be eaten at any hour.
Burek originates in Turkey, where it is called börek, from Turkish burmak (to twist).
Though burek can be eaten hot or cold, it’s best straight from the oven. The pastry will be nicely flaky on the outside, but on the inside it should be tender, with the consistency of perfectly cooked pasta. In Bosnia it is cooked in great spirals, in round baking trays. Choose your variety and the baker will slice it with a pizza cutter and wrap it in butcher’s paper for you.
In Sarajevo, bakeries (pekare) and special stores that sell only burek (buregdžinica) sell burek by weight, the price is around 3-5 BAM.
