Albanian Byrek
Albanian Byrek
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb baked peta
- 5 eggs
- 1 cup butter melted; scant
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
- 3 cups milk
Instructions
- Mix together the eggs, salt, yoghurt and milk.
- Grease a large baking pan (traditionally byrek is baked in large, round, metal pans).
- Begin layering: cover the pan with peta, then the milk mixture, then drizzle butter/oil on
- Keep layering (peta, milk, butter) until you run out of ingredients.
- The top should be melted butter/oil.
- Bake for 40 minutes at 375 F.
- Remove from the oven. Cover the byrek with a wet dish towel. Let sit until cool.
- Remove the towel. Place a large pan upside down over the byrek pan. Flip over the byrek so that it comes out upside down onto the other pan. This will ensure that the top of your byrek is soft and not crunchy.
- Cut the byrek into small squares or diamonds and serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
Byrek is a delicious pie very common in Albania and other Balkan countries. "Peta" is not the same as "pita." Peta is a dry, baked, very thin, tortilla-like dough. It soaks up a lot of moisture in this byrek recipe. If you can't get baked peta, and you don't want to make your own (it is a very time-consuming process!), you can use phyllo dough. However, then you must cut down on the milk/egg mixture significantly because the phyllo does not absorb nearly as much liquid as the peta does.
