The rule
Burek is made with meat. That is the definition. The same pastry filled with something else has a different name — it is a *pita*, and the filling names it.
| Filling | Called |
|---|---|
| Minced meat | Burek |
| Cheese | Sirnica |
| Spinach and cheese | Zeljanica |
| Potato | Krompiruša |
| Pumpkin | Tikvenica |
| Apple, sweet | Pita s jabukama |
How to order
By weight, not by piece. It comes coiled in a large round pan and is cut to whatever you ask for.
- Pola kile — half a kilo, a proper breakfast for one hungry person
- Dvjesta grama — 200 g, a snack
- It is sold hot, wrapped in paper, eaten standing or in the car
- €2.50 – €3.50 for a substantial portion
What it comes with
Jogurt — drinking yoghurt, thin, sour, served cold in a glass or a bottle. This is not optional in the way that ketchup is not optional with chips. The fat and salt of the pastry against the acidity of the yoghurt is the entire point of the combination.
Ordering burek without yoghurt is allowed and slightly odd. Ordering it with coffee is what people who are late for work do.
When
Breakfast, mainly — bakeries have it from six in the morning. Also very late at night, which is the other time bakeries are busy, for reasons related to the bars closing. Between about eleven and six in the evening it is less common and what is left has been sitting.
Freshly out of the oven is a different thing from an hour old. In a busy bakery there is a new pan every twenty minutes and you can see it.
Where
A pekara — a bakery — rather than a café or a restaurant. Every town has several, they are open early, and the ones with a queue at seven in the morning are the ones to use.
The best burek in the country is generally agreed to be inland rather than on the coast, in Podgorica, Nikšić and the northern towns, where it is a daily food rather than something sold to visitors.
The other thing to try
Priganice — small fried dough balls, served hot with honey, cheese or kajmak. Traditionally a welcome for guests. Some bakeries and most konobas in the north do them, and they cost almost nothing.
