EuroFoodTrails
Bosnia & Herzegovina · Southeast Europe

Burek sa Sirom (Cheese Burek)

Coiled cheese pie in filo — bakery breakfast across the Balkans.

Burek sa sirom is a coiled filo pie filled with salted fresh cheese, sold by weight in bakeries across the Western Balkans and eaten at any time of day. The filling is barely more than cheese and egg; the work is in rolling and coiling the pastry so it bakes crisp rather than damp.

60 min Serves 6 mediumpastryvegetarianbreakfast

Ingredients

  • 1 pack filo pastry
  • 400g feta or young cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • 200g yoghurt
  • Oil or melted butter

Method

  1. 1

    Mash the cheese with eggs and half the yoghurt.

  2. 2

    Brush two filo sheets with oil and spread a line of filling along one edge.

  3. 3

    Roll into a long rope and coil into an oiled round tin.

  4. 4

    Repeat until the tin is filled in a spiral.

  5. 5

    Bake at 200C for 35 minutes, then brush with the rest of the yoghurt and bake 5 minutes more.

Budget note

Filo and cheese: a tray that feeds six for the price of two coffees.

The rest of the bakery and grill table

  • Ćevapi — The grilled meat sold a few doors down.
  • Ajvar — The pepper relish that goes with both.
From the guide

Konoba & Kafana

Six Balkan recipes are free here; the guide holds thirteen, set in the country-by-country context the recipe pages leave out — menus, bills, receipts, protected names and market shopping.

Thirteen recipes from seven Western Balkan countries, and the menus, bills and labels that go with them.

  • Thirteen Balkan recipes with metric and US measures
  • Seven-country coverage: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo
  • How to read a menu, and what tells a konoba from a kafana
  • What your bill and receipt should show, country by country
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