Pljeskavica (Belgrade's Flat Balkan Burger, Grilled Hard) 🍔

Zubereitung

1. 1

   Knead both meats with grated onion, bicarb, salt and pepper for five minutes until the mix turns sticky and pale — the gluten is what lets it be pounded thin without shredding. Cover and rest in the cold at least an hour, ideally overnight.

2. 2

   Shape the mix into a big ball, flatten onto a board to roughly 2 cm, then stretch it outward with both hands into a disc larger than your palm — the tradition says as wide as the knife is bold — and dock a few times with a knife so it doesn't balloon.

3. 3

   Salt the face. Lay on the hottest part of a charcoal grill or a screaming dry pan. Two to three minutes per side: you want black freckles, rendered fat running, and a still-pink core — it's not a burger that needs the middle safe, it's ground meat cooked the Balkan way, high heat and short.

4. 4

   Warm the lepinja over the coals, split it, smear kajmak inside, stack the pljeskavica in, bury an armful of raw onion, a spoon of ajvar if you're in Belgrade and not afraid. Close, salt the outside of the bread lightly.

5. 5

   Eat standing at the grill counter in Dorćol, or wrapped in paper on the Kalemegdan wall. A 'gurmanska' order — one patty of two kinds of meat — is the locals' flex.