Börek

For the 2004 album and song from Bosnia named Burek, see Dino Merlin.

Round burek (filled with ground meat)

Cheese and potato-filled bourekas

Serbian rolled burek ("pitice" or "pužići")

Burek (also börek, boereg, and other variants on the name) is a type of baked or fried filled pastry, popular in some countries around the Mediterranean Sea, the Slavic cuisines, throughout the Balkans and the former Ottoman Empire. They are made of a thin flaky dough known as phyllo dough (or yufka dough), and are filled with salty cheese (often feta), minced meat, potatoes or other vegetables. Burek may be prepared in a large pan and cut into portions after baking, or as individual pastries. The top of the Burek is often sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Turkey

In Turkish, börek is the name used for pastries made with phyllo dough. Su böreği ("water burek") is the most common type. Layers of dough are boiled briefly in large pans, then a mixture of feta cheese, parsley and oil is scattered between the layers. Sigara böreği ("cigar burek," named for its shape) is often filled with feta cheese, potato, parsley and sometimes with minced meat or sausage. A variety of vegetables, herbs and spices are used in böreks such as spinach, nettle, leek, potato, eggplant, courgette, ground black pepper.

Küt böreği is a fillingless burek, often served with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

Kol böreği ("arm burek") is a type of burek prepared in long rolls, either rounded (also named Gül böreği) or lined and filled with either mincemeat, feta cheese or potato and baked under low heat.

Çiğ börek ("raw burek") is a half round shaped burek, filled with raw mincemeat and fried in olive oil.

Albanian Byrek or Lakror

In Albania, this dish is called Byrek or sometimes Lakror and it contains mainly spinach but sometimes also meat or cheese. Albanian byrek may also contain pumpkin (which is sweet); it is also often spelled "burek", especially among Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as Albanian-American emigrants.

Albanian byrek are typically savoury, not sweet, and are often served as the main dish of a meal. LololololloLOLOLolollOLOLOOLlololLOLOLOLlllolololOOLOLOLOlOLO

Armenian Boereg

In Armenia, Boeregs are stuffed with cheese. They are also stuffed with other fillings such as spinach or ground beef, and the filling is typically spiced.

Assyrian Burek

Assyrian Burek is usually stuffed with ground beef that has various spices added to it though, potatoes are also sometimes used instead of meat. The stuffing is wrapped in a sheet of dough and then fried in oil and resembles egg rolls.

Bulgarian Byurek

The Bulgarian version of the pastry, locally called byurek (Cyrillic: бюрек), is typically regarded as a variation of banitsa (баница), a similar Bulgarian dish. Bulgarian byurek is a type of banitsa with sirene cheese, the difference being that byurek also has eggs added.

In Bulgarian, the word byurek has also come to be applied to other dishes similarly prepared with cheese and eggs, such as chushka byurek (чушка бюрек), a peeled and roasted pepper filled with cheese, and tikvichka byurek (тиквичка бюрек), blanched or uncooked bits of squash with a cheese and eggs filling.

Greek Μπουρέκι, Bouréki, or Μπουρεκάκι, Bourekáki

Galaktoboureko, sweet burek flavored with lemon or orange

In Greece and Cyprus, boureki (μπουρέκι [bur'eki]) or bourekaki (μπουρεκάκι [bure'kaki], the diminutive form of the word), are small pastries made with phyllo dough or with pastry crust. A special type of boureki is found in the local cuisine of Crete and especially in the area of Chania. It is made with sliced zucchini, sliced potatoes, mizithra or feta cheese and spearmint. The mixture can be covered by a thick layer of traditional phyllo (pastry crust), but it is quite common to be left plain as well.

Galaktoboureko is a syrupy phyllo-pastry filled with custard, common throughout Greece and Cyprus. In the Epirus, σκερ-μπουρέκ (şeker-börek, "sugar-börek") is a small rosewater-flavored marzipan sweet.

Israel

Bourekas are made out of puff pastry filled with various fillings. Among the most popular fillings are cheese, mashed potato, spinach, eggplant, pizza-flavor, and mushrooms. The name Bourekas is derived from the Ladino language, spoken in the past by Jewish communities in the Mediterranean area.

Israeli bourekas come in several shapes, which are usually indicative of their fillings. Cheese bourekas come in right-angled and isosceles triangles, and have two different sizes. Potato-filled bourekas come in a box shape. Bourekas with a pizza filling resemble a cylindrical shape, while spinach filled bourekas resemble a pastry knot. There are also the so-called "Turkish bourekas" which form rounded equilateral triangles, and are filled with various fillings, whose type can usually be determined by an additional element on the outside.

Bourekas come in small, "snack" size, often available in self-service bakeries, and larger size, approximately 2 inches by 4 inches. The larger ones can serve as a snack or a meal, and can be sliced open, and stuffed with hard-boiled egg, pickles and Skhug, a spicy Yemenite paste.

The Former Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija)

Buregdžinica in Zagreb

Across the territories of former Yugoslavia, burek is not used in a hyperonymous sense (like pie, cake, etc.), as in Turkey. Burek is regularly available at most bakeries, and usually eaten as "fast food". It is often consumed with yoghurt. Apart from being sold at bakeries, burek is served in specialized stores selling burek (or pitas) and yogurt exclusively (Buregdžinica).

Serbian, Macedonian and Croatian (round) burek

In Serbia, Macedonia and Croatia, burek is made from layers of thin dough, alternating with layers of other fillings in a circular baking pan and topped with a layer of dough. Traditional fillings are stewed ground meat, cheese, apple, sour cherry, mushrooms, and a modern variant, "pizza" burek. Prazan burek ("empty burek", i.e. without filling) is also made.

The recipe for modern "round" burek was developed in the Serbian town Niš, where it was introduced by a famous Turkish baker, Mehmed Oglu, from Istanbul in 1498.

Serbian burek became popular in Croatia and in Slovenia in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The first burek in Zagreb was made by famous bakers near the main railway station (Kolodvor) after World War II. Niš hosts an annual burek competition called Buregdžijada. In 2005, a 100 kg/200 lb. burek was made, with a diameter of 2 meters / 6 feetand it's considered to have been the biggest burek ever made.

Bosnian (rolled) burek

Bosnian rolled burek

In Bosnia and Herzegovina the word burek refers only to the meat-filled pastry dish. Thin dough layers are stuffed and then rolled and cut into spirals (resembling an American cinnamon bun).

The same dish with cottage cheese is called sirnica, one with spinach and cheese zeljanica, one with potatoes krompiruša, and all of them are generically referred to as pita (trans. pie).

This kind of dough dish is also popular in Croatia, where it was imported by Bosnian Croats, and is usually called rolani burek (rolled burek).

In Serbian towns Bosnian pastry dishes were imported by war refugees in the 1990s, and are usually called sarajevske pite or bosanske pite (Sarajevo/Bosnian pies). Similar dishes, although somewhat wider and with thinner dough layers are called savijača or just "pita" in Serbia.

However, these are usually homemade and not traditionally offered in bakeries.

In Bosnia, burek only refers to one special pastry dish filled with meat. In Serbia and Croatia, one always specifies the type of stuffing (burek sa mesom - 'burek with meat', for instance).

In Crimea Crimean Tatars making same burek and call it "burma".

Crimea

Cheburek (Tatarstan)

The Tatar version, called "cheburek" is made from unleavened dough filled with ground lamb, onions and spices, fried in oil.

It is a common street food in Tatarstan and other former ex-USSR countries like Ukraine and Georgia.

Cheburek is the Russian pronunciation of the Crimean Tatar "çibörek", which means "delicious burek".

It is also wildly popular in Turkey where it is called "çiğbörek" [chiboreque] which means "raw burek" because of the uncooked raw meat filled in before the burek is fried, as opposed to other types of Turkish burek.

It is one of the national dishes of Crimean Tatars.

Tunisian Brik

Brik is a Tunisian burek, often fried; its best-known variant is composed of a whole egg in a triangular pastry pocket with chopped onion and parsley.

Origin and name

Burek has its origins in the Turkish cuisine (cf. Baklava) and is one of its most significant and, in fact, ancient elements of the Turkish cuisine, having been developed by the Turks of Central Asia before their westward migration to Anatolia .

Burek in Turkish language refers to any dish made with "yufka", the Turkish word for the phyllo pastry. The name comes from the Turkic root bur- 'to twist', (similar to Serbian word savijača (from savijati - to twist) which also describes a layered dough dish) or possibly from Persian būrek.

Most of the time, the word "börek" is accompanied in the Turkish language by a descriptive word referring to the shape, ingredients of the pastry, for the cooking methods or for or a specific region where it is typically prepared, (for example, kol böreği, su böreği, talaş böreği, Tatar böreği or Sarıyer böreği).

In the Turkish language, the word "börek" has a wider range of meanings, and can refer to a puff pastry, known as nemse böreği in Turkish language, and to other types of "börek", where the dough is processed somewhat differently from the standard phyllo recipe, like su böreği (water burek), where the dough sheets are briefly boiled in water before layering, and saray böreği (palace burek), where butter is rolled between the dough sheets.

In some other languages, which have borrowed this word, they are using it in a more specific and more narrow sense, as a general term for all kind of dishes prepared with phyllo dough.

Cultural references

• Burek was and still remains one of the most ubiquitous food in all regions of the former SFR Yugoslavia. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) In the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Slovenian skier Jure Franko, rather unexpectedly, had won the first Winter Olympic medal ever for Yugoslavia. During the medal award ceremony, thousands of fans greeted him with the slogan "we love Jurek more than we love burek" ("volimo Jureka više nego bureka").

• Slovenian hip-hop artist Ali En (now named Dalaj Egol) recorded a song named "Burek" which was a major hit in Slovenia.

• Macedonian comedians, known under the name K-15, in their musical group called Duo-Trio, recorded a song called "Burek", and it was all about the dish.

• In Croatia, the famous soccer fan group for Dinamo (Bad Blue Boys) eat Croatia's finest bureks before the games.

• In Croatia and other ex-Yugoslavian countries famous wall graffiti: "Sex, burek and Rock 'n' roll"

• To this day in Turkey, one may hear an expression often used by the poor, and even by the middle class, saying, "I am not rich enough to eat baklava and burek every day."

• In Lithuania, bureks (čeburekai) are sold on Palanga Beach, where peddlers walk around the beach and sell bureks, beer and ice-cream.

• In 2004 Dino Merlin, a popular Bosnian singer, issued a song and an album called "Burek".
• Burek Forum is the name of the largest Internet Forum in Serbia, with (as of March 2009) nearly 700,000 registered users.

See also

• Bierock
• Gibanica
• Spanakopita

References

This article contains information from Frosina.org and it is used with permission.