Pastrmajlija

Ingredients

• Flour500 g
• Warm water300 ml
• Dry yeast7 g
• Vegetable oil50 ml
• Pork neck — with its fat, diced600 g
• Eggs4
• Paprika2 tsp
• Hot chilli — to serve2
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dice the pork into centimetre cubes, salt it generously and leave it two hours in the cold.

   20 min

2. 2

   Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and leave it ten minutes, until it foams.

   12 min

3. 3

   Knead a soft dough from the flour, sponge, oil and salt and work it ten minutes.

   14 min

4. 4

   Let it rise an hour somewhere warm, until doubled.

   62 min

5. 5

   Divide the dough into four and stretch each into an oval thirty centimetres long.

   15 min

6. 6

   Fold the edges in to make a rim and spread the meat with paprika over the whole surface.

   12 min

7. 7

   Bake at 250 °C for twenty minutes, crack an egg on top and give it five more.

   28 min

About the dish

The meat goes on raw, in pieces with their fat, and cooks along with the dough. Pre-fried, it gives up its juices in the pan instead of into the bread.

The shape is long, with a raised rim — hence the boat. The rim holds the rendered fat so it soaks into the dough rather than running onto the tray.

The egg is cracked on top five minutes before the end. Added at the start it turns to rubber long before the meat is done.

Worth knowing

• — Heat the oven to full in advance. At a low heat the dough dries out before the meat gives up any juices.
• — Use fatty meat. Lean loin stays dry and the bread never soaks — the fat is the sauce here.
• — Pastrmajlija is eaten by hand, tearing pieces from the rim. Štip devotes an autumn festival to it.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

38 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

58 g

More from North Macedonia

• Tavče gravče — White beans baked in a clay pan with onion, paprika and peppers. North Macedonia's national dish.
• Selsko meso — Pork stewed with mushrooms, onion and wine in an individual clay pot, under cheese.
• Ohrid trout — Trout baked whole with lemon and herbs, from Lake Ohrid.