Pljeskavica

With juicy burgers and fantastic sides, this is a must-try. Pljeskavica is a Serbian hamburger that is popular in one form or another all over the Balkans. It can be prepared in many different ways, but grilling is traditional.

To be completely honest, I didn't even know what this was until I saw an episode of my favorite channel on YouTube: Sorted Food where it was mentioned that pljeskavica was growing in popularity as fast food in Sweden. As I had never seen this out in town, of course I was curious and had to do some quick research. It is true that you can get hold of pljeskavica in a number of places around Sweden and they are often served as an alternative to a normal hamburger.

There are many different variations, but I choose to make a recipe of what I perceived to be the most common to get hold of in Sweden. I choose to use beef, pork and lamb as it is rare that I use all 3 in any recipe. For an even more authentic recipe, you should use real Kajmak, but I had trouble finding that around here, so I chose an alternative where you simply mixed cream cheese, butter and creme fraiche. I'm not sure how close to real Kajmak this will be, but it sure is tasty. This in combination with homemade Ajvar and Lepinja is very good and I can absolutely recommend giving this some time and trying it sometime.

In this particular recipe, I choose to grate the onion and mix it with the meat, but I have seen other variations where you add the onion (roughly chopped) just before the meat is cooked. Another option is to fold the onion between two thin layers of meat just before cooking - this way the onion is baked into the meat.

Another thing that may seem a little unusual is that there is bicarbonate in the mince. It is not a mistake, it helps to keep the meat juicy.

It is perfectly possible to shape the burgers and freeze them just before cooking. They keep in the freezer for a few months.