Making Meat Burekas
Recipe by Ted (z”l) and Pearle née Benoun Hasson (z”l), Los Angeles
Bureka meat filling:
- 2 onions, chopped
- 3 teaspoon oil
- 2 lbs ground meat
- ½ cup tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- ½ cup water 4 oz
- ½ cup rice
- ½ cup chopped parsley
- 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
Directions:
- Glaze chopped onions in oil.
- Add meat until browned.
- Add tomato sauce, salt, pepper and cook for 10 minutes.
- Add rice and water, then cover and let simmer about 20 minutes or until the rice is done.
- Add chopped eggs and parsley.
- Remove from heat and let cool.
- Drain excess oils with paper towels.
- Allow to cool.
- * For the dough recipe, here’s the link: https://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/bureka-dough/
Step 1: Preparing the filling (“konducho”) for meat burekas:
Below is a summarized photographic step for making a popular Rhodesli “comida” of meat burekas.
On the right column is the recipe and instructions.
1. Ingredients for the filling: ground meat, onions, oil, rice, parsley, egg and tomato sauce.
2. Adding meat to the sautéed onions.
3. Adding tomato sauce to the meat and onion mixture.
4. Adding rice to the mixture.
5. Adding parsley and egg to the mixture.
6. Final appearance of the meat filling.
Step 2: Dough process for the meat burekas:
The following are the steps to combine the meat filling (“konducho”) with the dough of the bureka:
7. Ingredients for bureka dough, utensils and kneading.
8. Dividing dough with scooper and shaping into ball forms by rolling in hands.
9. Rolling balls of dough into oval shapes.
10. Scooping meat mixture onto flattened oval dough shapes.
11. Folding dough over meat mixture into half-circle bureka shape. Pinching or (crimping) and folding the edge of the bureka.
12. Placing meat burekas onto baking pan. Brushing egg wash and sprinkling burekas with sesame seeds. Bake at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
13. The finished product. Enjoy!
This is the exact recipe I learned from my mother’s side of the family. We make ours into round cups instead of folded over and then we cut off the tops and add a salsa of chopped tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice.
On “Foods” page, “Making Meat Burekas”: My mother, Stella Surmani and her brother Eliezer Surmani were born in Rhodes, are both in their 80’s and survived the horrible camps. I have learned a lot from my mom with the wonderful Sephardic foods, We make the biscochicos and yaprak. She introduced us to matzapan and halva – I love them both. Thank you for the recipes, I plan to make the burekas. The website is wonderful.
They look absolutely DELICIOUS!! I will “adopt” your recipe and try them the way you did – thanks so much!!
No hay mejor que las bulemas y las borekas de Rodis!!!!!