The Sarajevo Survival Guide was put together in Sarajevo during the siege and published by FAMA in 1993. Its war recipes begin with the dish every Bosnian household knew, the meat pie, and with a sentence that says a great deal about those years: “Once upon a time you would use fresh beef or lamb meat, cut into small pieces or ground… Today, look for the meat in the cans from the humanitarian aid.” The recipe is displayed at the National Museum of the US Air Force, beside a stove made from a tin. The story behind it is in cooking through war.
The method is the guide’s: meat seasoned with salt, pepper and onion, rolled up in oiled dough, coiled round, cooked, and then, the detail that makes it, “sprinkle it with water, cover and let it soften.” A Bosnian cook would stretch the dough paper-thin by hand. Rolled dough is thicker and more forgiving, and it still gives you a crisp base and soft layers.
- Dough. Mix the flour and salt, add 1 tablespoon of the oil and about 150 ml of lukewarm water, and bring it together into a soft dough. Knead for 3 or 4 minutes until smooth. Cover and leave for 15 minutes while you make the filling. The rest makes it much easier to roll thin.
- Filling. Pour 3 tablespoons of just-boiled water over the dried onion and leave it 10 minutes. Break the corned beef up finely with a fork, then mix in the onion and plenty of pepper. Corned beef is salty enough; it needs no more.
- Halve the dough. Roll one piece on an oiled surface as thin as you can, into a long strip about 15 cm wide. Brush it with oil. Lay half the filling in a line along one long edge and roll it up into a rope. Repeat.
- Oil a 24 cm frying pan with a lid. Coil the first rope from the centre outwards, then carry on with the second. Brush the top with oil.
- Lid on, lowest flame, 20 minutes, until the base is golden and the top has set. Slide it out onto the lid or a plate, turn it back into the pan, and cook the other side, covered, for another 10 to 15 minutes. Cut into the middle of the coil to check: the dough there should be cooked through and flaky, not sticky.
- The guide’s finish. Take the pan off the heat, sprinkle 2 or 3 tablespoons of water over the pie, put the lid back on and leave it 5 minutes. The crust softens and the layers steam together.
Serve warm, with something sharp beside it: pickles, or a spoon of Olga Finci’s “cheese”, the recipe that follows it in the same exhibit.
With an oven: coil it into an oiled round tin and bake at 200°C (180°C fan, gas 6) for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden, then finish with water as above.
Serves 4.