Beef Burek



I love anything with flaky delish pastry, adding meat and/or cheese brings me nothing but joy (and probably explains my high cholesterol 😆) this burek recipe is probably something I wouldn't attempt normally but we made it at work and it was so yummy I wondered where it had been all my life.

I'll note that I used store-bought filo pastry rather then making the proper pastry. Hats off to all the baba's out there slaving away to stretch and pull filo from scratch but I don't have the patience to do that at this point, but if someone has a sweet old baba who would like to show me I'll never say no!!

You will need...
1 small brown onion, peeled and finely diced
400gr beef mince
1/2 cup picked parsley, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 Tbsp vegetable oil, plus 1 extra teaspoon for cooking
2 eggs (if using large or jumbo eggs only use one)
4 Tbsp Greek yoghurt (unflavoured, natural)
3 Tbsp water
12 sheets filo pastry
Canola spray for greasing
Lemon wedges to serve

Optional:
100gr soft feta cheese
100gr chopped spinach
1 clove garlic, diced

Method...
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius, fan forced. Grease a 10 inch springform cake tin.
2. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a non stick frypan and sweat off onion over a medium-low heat until transparent (if using garlic, add now).
3. Add beef mince and cook, breaking up chunks, until browned. Mix through chopped parsley, seasoning and other ingredients if using
4. Place eggs, yoghurt, oil and water together and whisk to combine.
5. Pull out a single filo sheet, lay flat and use a pastry brush to lightly coat the pastry with the egg and yoghurt mixture. Place another sheet on top and repeat until you have four layers of pastry. It is important that you work quickly as the egg mixture will soften the pastry and make it hard to roll.
6. Divide the meat into three equal portions, then place one portion of the meat on the long side of the pastry, spread it into a log.

7. Roll the pastry up into a log, not too tightly to avoid it tearing. Then take one end and begin to curl the log into a swirl, again not so tightly that it tears.
8. Place swirl in the centre of the greased tin, then repeat the process again. Instead of curling the next log on itself, attach the tail to the end of the swirl to build on it. Repeat one more time until the tin is filled.

9. Once your pastry is all filled and placed into the tin, brush the top with the egg mixture and place into the oven for 30 minutes or until golden and crisp on the bottom.
10. Remove from tin and cut into wedges to serve.





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