Here is Kosovo, there is a great bakery about a three-minute walk from my apartment called Furra Dora. I am quickly making friends with two people who work there because I buy byrek there multiple times a week.
Byrek dough is extremely flakey and the outside is greasy, so it can get a little messy. But each bite is so satisfying! The bread on the outside is usually more crunchy while the inside is more soft and doughy (and warm!). The fillings and the bread are always well-balanced--I usually get meat or spinach. Whenever I get byrek from a bakery, it looks huge! I always think "there's no way I can eat this whole thing..." But I always do.
Apparently, byrek is very difficult to make! It has many thin layers of pasty (called "filo") with different fillings inside. The most common ones here are meat, spinach and cheese. In Kosovo, most byrek is made in a circular pan. Once the dough is ready, the whole beautiful pastry is assembled in the pan. First, you put a layer of dough, and then a layer of filling, and keep alternating a couple more times. Then, after a last layer of dough is added, the whole thing is baked. Then, it's cut up into huge pieces like pizza! You can also ask for it to be chopped up into smaller, bite sized pieces. Yum!
Byrek is extremely popular in this part of the world! People from tons of different countries eat it, including Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey... the list goes on and on.
Since byrek is such an old dish, there isn't really a solid history of where it comes from.
