Mesnik or Beef Burek Recipe with beef head meat, as it otherwise cold in the South of Albania, is a recipe that we prepare mainly for holidays and happy family meals. We also can prepare this recipe for weekends when the whole family gathers around the table and enjoys the delicious cooking of our mothers and grandmothers. It is not difficult to cook, but it takes a little more time than other burek recipes since we will prepare the baked phyllo dough layers ourselves at home.
We prepared it again at the end of the year holidays, so we share it with you, and you have the recipe whenever you want to cook it according to our tradition. Unlike minced beef burek, this recipe cooks with beef head meat, which is a tender and easily digestible meat. At the same time, beef head juice is tasty to realize a much delicious special recipe.
You can choose the beef thigh or shoulder part of the ragu when you can not find the head beef part. In this way, you will prepare the juice and the meat for the filling of the burek.
In this recipe, we will use dried mint to season the juice and the filling, as we do in many other traditional recipes in the south of Albania.
Mesnik is a thicker pie than the pies we prepare daily. Follow the recipe carefully for the ingredients and how to prepare it.
Ingredients
For the filling
- 1/2 beef head or 1 kg of ragu beef meat
- 1- big onion
- olive oil
- salt, black pepper
- dried mint
- 100 ml vegetal oil
For the Phyllo Dough (baked layers)
- 1 kg of all-purpose flour
- 500 ml of water
- 1 tsp of salt
For the fresh phyllo dough layers
- 200-250 g all-purpose flour
- 100-125 ml of water
- a little salt
Directions
As for any other burek recipes, cooking beef burek, or Mesnik as we call it in Përmet, consists of three stages:
- Preparation and baking of phyllo dough layers
- Meat preparation and the filling
- Laying and baking the burek
Preparation and baking of phyllo dough layers
- First, we will knead the phyllo dough for the burek, and after we leave it for 30 minutes to rest. Passing the time, we divide it into 14-15 parts. The process of kneading the phyllo dough is the same as any other Albanian burek recipe. We share many of them in our blog, and you can have a look here to learn more about Phyllo Dough.
- We will open each of the pieces in thick layers for burek and bake them. We will use the stove oven for baking the phyllo layers one by one and leave them aside. We can also prepare the baked layers for a day or two before cooking the burek recipe. To facilitate your work, you can choose to use ready-made baked phyllo layers.
- If we are going to prepare the baked phyllo layers the same day, we will cook the burek, then do not bake one of the phyllo layers and lay it wet at the bottom of the baking pan to collect the baked layers and arrange the sides of the burek nicely when we lay it out.
Meat preparation and the filling of the burek
The second step is to prepare the meat, which is best to boil it the day before. In this way, we can separate it from the bones and excess fat and have it ready to cook our burek recipe.
- Thus, we have chopped the beef head into pieces to arrange it in a pot, and boil it as well as possible. Wash the pieces of meat with running water and place them to boil in a large pot of cold water, and when it starts to boil, we will add salt and one onion divided into several parts. You can also add bay leaves and some celery sprigs to add flavor to the meat.
- Let it boil well and occasionally remove the foam that the meat will bring to the surface. We will let the meat simmer for about 2 hours or if you are going to use a pressure cooker for an hour. The head beef meat should detach from the bone easily. If you do not have a beef head, you can also use the ragu part of the shoulder or calf thigh, boiling it with the whole bones because the bone makes the juice tasty.
- We will let it cool and clean the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into small pieces and set aside. Drain the liquid and put it in the fridge so that the fat freezes, and we easily remove it for healthier cooking. In place of this fat, we will cook add olive oil to the filling of the burek.
- To prepare the filling, we will chop the onion thinly and sauté it with olive oil until it softens. Divide the onion into two parts, in different saucepans, and to one, we will add the chopped meat and simmer for another 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup warm water and let it simmer for a few minutes until the onion does not crack. We will fix it with a little salt, pepper, and dry mint.
- In the other pan, we will add the meat broth, salt, and black pepper. Let it simmer for 3 minutes, and add the dry mint. We will add a little more olive oil and let the liquid cool until it reaches a lukewarm temperature.
Laying and baking the burek
- If we prepared the baked layers days ago, before we lay the burek, we prepare 2-3 fresh phyllo layers to lay at the bottom of the baking pan and the top of it. It helps us better gather the baked layers. Once we have the fresh phyllo layers ready, we start to lay the burek layers.
- We will sprinkle the baking pan with a little oil, and we will lay two of the wet phyllo layers, which we sprinkle between them with vegetal oil.
- We dip the baked phyllo layers in the meat broth, as we do with the milk burek, and place them in the baking pan one by one. You can choose to divide the baked layers into three parts of five layers by placing two-time meat filling. You can also separate the baked layers in half of 7-8 layers and place all the meat filling in a single layer in the middle of the burek.
- So we create a layer with five baked layers, and we will throw a piece of meat filling. Continue with the other five baked phyllo layers previously soaked in the meat broth and add the remaining meat filling. In the end, we finish laying with the remaining baked layers. We will sprinkle the noodles between them with corn oil during laying.
- In the end, we will close the pie with a wet phyllo layer, but this is optional because the softened baked layers placed on top of the pie create a beautiful crust during baking even without the need to have a wet phyllo layer. Sprinkle with corn oil and arrange the sides of the pie nicely.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for 35-40 minutes. The burek in baking will take on a reddish color. Remove from the oven and return to another casserole.
- We cover it and let it cool. We cut it into pieces and serve it warm.
Bon Appetit!
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