My friend Mira is an experienced cook with a generous heart. Last night I got a message with an invitation to come up to her home for a lesson this morning. We made this in about two hours in spite of multiple interruptions -- she's the village nurse and had to slip out to treat someone, took a consult on her porch about allergy meds for someone else, and had two condolence drop -in visits (her father passed away about 3 weeks ago).
I'm slow on the InstaStory train but took videos of each step and posted ingredients, amounts, and instructions. I've saved it to my profile so it doesn't disappear after the usual 24-hour window. Hopefully this link will work! https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17859162817478611/
My profile name is simply 'cydil'
The finished product is called (in English) meat, tomato and onion pie. In Albanian it's known as byrek me domate dhe qep. Mira generously uses fresh mint, which I've grown to enjoy, but may be the most unusual aspect of this dish for an American palate. You could omit it, but I think it would lose what makes it distinctly Albanian! (Albanian cooks employ lots of local, fresh (and dried, in the off season) herbs like oregano, mint, dill, basil, sage, etc.) A good bit of the work in this recipe is making the crust. You can easily substitute store-bought filo/phyllo pastry. Enjoy!
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When I arrived, Mira had moved this portable burner to her shaded front porch. It was 9AM and already very warm -- there was no sense bringing more heat into the house! Here she is throwing about half a pound of ground beef into a skillet of oil to cook.
Then she added four chopped onions to the skillet. It immediately smelled like many an Albanian kitchen window I have passed by on the street!
We walked over to a table where she was peeling and chopping four large tomatoes from our friend Bardha's garden. The tomatoes went into a strainer to drain any extra moisture that might make the pie soggy.
Next she dumped about 1/3 of a kilo bag of flour into a mixing bowl
and added warm water to make a dough.
She split the dough into two balls, covered, and set in a warm cupboard to rest (though there is no yeast in this -- maybe it is self-rising flour?)
Then the tomatoes were added to the onions and beef.
She added a handful of chopped mint... what an aroma! Albanians LOVE to use mint in their cooking.
We left the food simmering on the porch and went inside to work with the dough.
Notice the old wooden board above? That belonged to her husband's great-grandmother and was more than 100 years old! The bottom crust needs to be larger than the top crust so she used slightly more than half of the total dough and split it into 9 smaller balls.
Then we ran back to the porch and added about a cup of cooked rice to the beef, tomato and onion mixture to use as a thickener.
Back in the house... each ball is rolled out and brushed with oil before stacking to make a flaky, layered crust.
The nine layers are then rolled out into one, massive thin sheet of crust.
You can see the wooden board is a good judge to make sure the crust is getting to the correct size to fit into the round pie pan... (Albanians have traditionally baked in round pans -- not rectangular like I'm accustomed to having grown up in the USA).
...to then fit into the byrek pan
At this point Mira got interrupted so I jumped in to try my hand at rolling dough.
I forgot to mention that corn starch is sprinkled on each small disk of dough to keep the layers distinct and from sticking together at this stage.
Now back to the pie pan and bottom crust... time to add the filling!
So, apparently, at this point in the process alternating between my big camera and phone got too much and I failed to get photos of her folding the excess crust in over the filling, then adding the top crust. You can see this on the insta story :-).
So we will skip ahead to Mira taking the assembled pie out to her portable oven. These are very common in this part of the world. I assume it's also what is used for making baklava ?? Again, everything here is round. Even the portable ovens!
It's pre-heated to 200 degrees celsius and baked for about 45 minutes, "depending on the strength of your electricity", she said. If you don't know what that means, you've been privileged to live in a place with good electricity. Sometimes our power is so low, everything operates at a fraction of its typical capacity. Lights are dimmer. Ovens don't get as hot or take longer to reach their desired temperature.
When the crust is golden, turn off the heat and drain any of the excess oil (or absorb with paper towels).
Here it is finished! I wish you could smell the savory richness of the beef and onions mingled with the faintest hint of sweetness from the mint.
It's really yummy!
Incidentally, cheap Albanian 'street food' features slices of byrek. It will be sold by the slice and wrapped in wax paper. It typically does not include meat (to keep it economical) and can feature fillings like egg and cheese, spinach and egg, or tomato and onion.
I recommend reheating leftovers in the oven -- not the microwave -- to keep the crust from getting soggy.
