HOW TO PREPARE MINCED MEAT FILLING FOR ZELNIK, BUREK, STUFFED PEPPERS, MOUSSAKA AND OTHER

Many times when making zelnik, other pastries, or for stuffing peppers or sarma, we use minced meat as filling. It's the best to use mixed minced meat - beef and pork, beef is drier and pork has more fat so they complement well.  But If you still want to use one meat only, choose beef.
Here I present you 2 basic minced meat preparation.

When you prepare zelnik and burek, or other pastries, you don't add spices to the meat. The basic recipe for 700 g flour zelnik or 500 g filo for burek is:

• 350-400 g minced meat
• 1 head onion
• 1 tsp salt
• half a tsp black pepper

First you fry the chopped onion on a little oil, you add the minced meat until it's fried well and add salt and black pepper in the end.


When preparing a pan of stuffed peppers or you make stuffed cabbage rolls sarma or vine leaves sarma, you prepare minced meat this way:

• 500 g minced meat
• 1 head onion
• 1 tbs paprika
• 1 tbs vegetable seasoning
• half a tsp black pepper
• oregano, dried parsley
• 1 small cup rice

When preparing moussaka, you use the previous procedure except you don't add rice.

When preparing bolognese minced meat sauce, you can also use the same procedure, just skip rice and add 500 ml tomato sauce and leave to cook for half an hour.