Burek — also known as börek, byrek, byurek, boureki and brik in different languages — is a filo pie made of thin, flaky dough and usually filled, quite often with a savory stuffing. In the Balkans, the most common burek fillings are meat, cheese, and spinach, cheese, potatoes or with mushrooms. It sounds so simple, yet the delicious result leaves no doubt as to why this dish remains incredibly popular, even hundreds of years after it was first made.

Burek is the KING of the filo pies. Burek is one of the most delicious foods ever created.

Burek, like so many foods in the Balkans and throughout the world, has a long, coiled history. It is usually said to have originated in what is now Turkey, during the Ottoman Empire, but others go back even further, tying the dish to the placenta, made of many layers of dough cyclical with cheese and honey and popular in Ancient Rome.

In fact, filled pastries date back to prehistoric times and eventually spread throughout the world, which is why pasties can be found in England, samosas in India and empanadas on the Iberian peninsula. But in countries once touched by the Ottoman Empire, versions of burek are given particular importance, often eaten on an almost daily basis. From North Africa on through to Central Asia, the dish remains a popular street food.

The foods derived from Turkish börek almost all have a thin, flaky crust rather than a more bready dough. But that’s not to say those once governed by the Ottomans all conformed to their rulers’ way of making börek. Turkey today presents a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and fillings, but its former subjects also vary their offerings. The end results are nearly all recognizable as börek, but each is infused with both the flavors and the cultural traditions of a certain region.

Why the Burek is king of filo pies ?

In 2012, when Lonely Planet named burek as one of the top 10 street foods in the world, they acknowledged its ubiquity throughout the Balkans, yet it was Bosnia’s version they praised. There’s no denying the country takes burek-making seriously. The thin dough is often wrapped tightly around the filling rather than arranged in an alternating manner, a far more time-consuming process. Often it is cooked “under the bell” but referring to a giant cast iron pan with a dome-shaped lid.

This attention to detail pays off in the finished product, which almost always manages to be somehow both crispy and creamy while letting the flavor of the filling edge through.

Just to make this burek thing even more complicated, many places in the former Yugoslavia seem to use burek and pita interchangeably. Apparently, there are differences but few seem to agree on what they are. In Bosnia, many argue that “pita” is the name for a round pie cut into wedges, while “burek” is a rolled meat pastry (that is also often cut into wedges). In other countries you can find “cheese pita” and “cheese burek” sitting side by side in a bakery, looking exactly the same. There it may be that the burek uses more oil than the pita. Who knows?

What kind of filling has this filo pie?

The all-time favorite fillings of the burek are cheese and meat but other fillings are also popular. There are filling like pumpkin, mushroom or shredded turkey.

The low cost means visitors are free to sample different versions from different bakeries (and, if they’re lucky, different cities and countries) before settling on their favorite. And because Burek can be eaten at almost any time of day, as a meal, snack, or late-night pick-me-up, there are plenty of opportunities to discover why it’s so beloved.

If you still don’t believe in this delicious story, go to the nearest store, buy one of our different flavors of Burek and enjoy the amazing taste of Burek. You are going to love the King of the filo pies!