Croatian Burek and Palatschinke Recipes

Following our series of articles dedicated to the destinations on the Croatian Adriatic coast, we thought we’d share some of the local cuisine secrets and tell you about two delicious dishes you can try while visiting Croatia. Useful hint: if you ever have the chance to visit Rovinj in late August, you can participate in one of the biggest outdoor parties organized in the city. The party is actually an open market where you can enjoy local food and drinks, and listen to traditional Croatian music.

Burek Recipe

Burek (also called börek) is a salty cheese pie, suitable both for breakfast or a quick snack. You’ll find it in most of the Balkan countries under different names and shapes but with similar ingredients and flavors, while in Croatia you can buy it from the popular Buregdžinica – specialized bakeries that only sell burek.
Burek can also be filled with minced meat and/or vegetables, but the recipe that we are about to share with you today is based on cheese and dairy products: it is lighter and we like it better – let us know what you think of our own homemade burek:

The ingredients you’ll need for twelve servings of burek are the following: 1 kg feta cheese (sirene or telemea is OK too, although if you don’t want your pie to be salty you can mix 500 g of feta cheese with 500 g of cottage cheese), 300 g sour cream, 6 eggs, 1 pack phyllo dough, 100 ml sparkling water and 1 tablespoon of oil to grease the pan.
Filling preparation: beat 5 eggs, add the cheese and 200 g sour cream, then mix them all together. Grease the pan with oil, place two sheets of phyllo and add a few tablespoons of filling to cover the phyllo sheets. Repeat, adding another two sheets of phyllo followed by the same quantity of filling as before and so on – make sure that the last portion of filling has also been covered with two sheets of phyllo. Beat the remaining egg and mix it with sparkling water and 100 g sour cream, then pour this mixture over the last sheets of phyllo. Place the burek in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 50 minutes.

You can serve the burek while it’s still warm, with a glass of red wine, or you can let it cool and serve it for breakfast, with a glass of yogurt.

Palačinke (Palatschinke) Recipe

Palačinke looks and tastes pretty much like the French crêpes.

The composition of palačinke requires 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of sparkling water, 3 eggs, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt and, for a richer flavor, a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix these ingredients together, cook the mixture in a hot pan the same way you do for French crêpes and then fill the palačinke with fruit jam, chocolate or ice cream.
Bon appetit!