Balkan Burgers
- Total Time
- 30 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 1pound ground beef, preferably chuck
- 1pound ground veal
- 1pound ground pork, preferably neck or jowl meat; or use ⅓ pound pork belly and ⅔ pound regular ground pork
- ½cup finely chopped onions plus minced onions, for serving
- 1½teaspoons salt
- 1tablespoon black pepper; or use 2 teaspoons sweet paprika and 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ¼cup sparkling water
- 6pita breads, warmed or toasted
- Kajmak with herbs (see recipe)
- Red pepper-eggplant ajvar (see recipe)
Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, place meats, ½ cup chopped onions, salt, pepper and sparkling water. Using your hands, lightly combine ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.
- Step 2
Divide mixture into six equal balls. Place one ball between two sheets of plastic wrap and use the heel of your hand to pound it to a thin patty, about ¼-inch thick and 6 inches in diameter. Repeat with remaining meat; refrigerate patties about 1 hour.
- Step 3
Heat a grill or heavy skillet to very hot. Cook patties, turning often, until well browned on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Cut pita breads in half horizontally, and serve burgers between pieces of pita. Sprinkle with onions and spread with kajmak and ajvar as desired.
Private Notes
Comments
Even veal-free, these were delicious. A huge hit with the entire family
No veal available locally, so I subsituted an equal amount of ground chicken.
To shape them, I cut squares of parchment paper and squished each ball of meat out onto a square. This let me stack the big patties between the parchment as I finished them, and it also meant you could pick them up by the corners of the parchment, upend them onto the grill, and peel the paper off.
How does a recipe with pork unite all factions in the Balkans, when Muslims and Jews do not eat pork?
I'm Serbian/American from Milwaukee. I've been grilling and eating pljeskavika all my life. First skip the veal, nobody does that. We use ground lamb/beef/pork mix instead. Add Vegeta all purpose seasoning to taste in the meat mixture before you form the patties. Also finely diced Hungarian wax pepper or green anihiem pepper mixed with the meat adds a nice touch. Sedite I jedite!
I'm Croatian and my mother always made these with equal parts horse-beef-lamb as the meat mix. Maybe it's a regional difference!
This is also a prevalent recipe in the most southern of former Yugoslavian republics - Macedonia. Lets not forget the small but not insignificant, gourmet cooking countries.
Nobody in the Balkans serves this pljeskavica in a thin pita bread. We serve it on a lepinja or a somun - approximately 1" thick 8" diameter bun, dough white and slightly fluffier than, but similar to ciabatta. For spread - definitively get good med. spicy ajvar (aka "red pepper spread" made in e.g. Serbia, Bulgaria...) and/or the heavenly Balkan version of clotted cream known as kajmak. Salad: grated cabbage or cucumber/tomato/onion. For diet preferences - lamb works instead of pork.