Homemade mantije straight from the oven 🥟🔥 Crispy tops, soft layers, and all the flavors.
I recently realized that I have been baking an indigenous old Balkan dish at home for quite a few years now, and it is one of those recipes that feels like it is slowly slipping out of everyday memory.
Mantije is a type of meat pie. It has a fantastic taste, but it does require a little more effort to prepare, and the effort pays off. While similar to other regional dishes, Pazarske mantije from Novi Pazar, Serbia, are particularly renowned, having been recognized by TasteAtlas as a top pastry, even surpassing the Bosnian burek in global rankings.
In Sandžak, people often call it mantija, while in parts of Bosnia where it is still known, it is called bosanski buredžici. The difference is in the shaping: in Bosnia, each sheet of dough is rolled separately, one by one, while in Sandžak the dough is first rolled into a snake shape and then cut into individual pieces.
It is one of those dishes that always starts a friendly argument at the table, because everyone who has not tried mantije yet will confidently claim that nothing is better than burek.
The funny part is that this is exactly the kind of dish that makes you feel like a master baker after a few attempts, even though the dough absolutely did not agree with you in the beginning. Mine certainly had a few rebellious phases before it decided to behave.
If you want to try the recipe itself, I wrote that down separately, this post is just the little story behind it.
These didn’t survive long 😄. Malo mantija, malo mira 😄