The Thinnest of Doughs

Anyone who knows me know that what I do with my free time is cook, cook, cook.

My most recent adventure in cooking was to make one of my favorite pastries: burek.

It's essentially phyllo dough (or yufka) filled with cheese or meat, although you can fill it however you like.

I first had this deliciousness in Serbia. The night was late, and my compatriots and I had consumed one too many Jelen (the ubiquitous Serbian beer), so we went wandering through the neighborhood at 2:00 am looking for the one thing that brings joy to all who are intoxicated: greasy, fatty food. We found a bakery that was literally no more than a window in the front of a building where an amused local advised that we try the burek because, "You haven't been in Belgrade until you've had burek!"

Whether he was right about that or just wanted to entertain himself with some drunk Americans, who knows? But did he have it right! Hot out of the oven, cheesy, buttery, flaky. The best of drunk foods.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I was not drunk and I did not drunkenly say, "You kno wha woul be da besttttt? Burek!"

That might have made a much better story.

But burek is a comfort food for me, and a challenge to make. So I jumped in. my own yufka and everything.

Surprisingly, the hardest part was not making or stretching the yufka. Let the dough rest long enough and stretching the gluten strands until the dough is paper thin is perhaps a bit tricky, but very doable even for a beginner.

Look at my hand right through that dough!

 The hard part was filling and shaping the rolls!

Knowing how much filling can be put in without putting too much weight on the dough and having it tear a lot longer to learn than just one batch. The same with how to maneuver such fragile dough into perfect rounds.

I tried two fillings. One 'salty' with ricotta and goat cheese, and the small swirls I made look sort of cute. I tried to make the 'sweet' filling with cream cheese and maple syrup into one giant burek, which didn't work out at all. It ended up too tall and not spread out in the pan, so I cut them into wedges. But you can't win them all on the first try.

But difficulty with presentation or no, the results were tasty. The salty rounds tasted quite like what I remember. The sweet wedges tasted sort of like french toast with maple syrup. Not quite "traditional," but still delicious.

Now to work on my filling and rolling technique so that I can make one the size of an entire pan and really impress people.