The dough is stretched paper-thin, layered or rolled around the filling, and usually baked. It is often served with ayran or yogurt. Across the Balkans the same word appears as burek, byrek and bourek, and Sephardic Jews brought bourekas to Israel, where cheese, spinach, eggplant and potato fillings are most common.
The name is Turkish, from bürmek, to roll or twist. The earliest mention is attributed to Mevlana in the thirteenth century. Origins are disputed. One theory derives börek from the Byzantine en tyritas plakountas, a layered cheese pastry. Another ties it to Turkic layered flatbreads recorded in the eleventh century. A third credits the imperial kitchens of Topkapı Palace with paper-thin filo.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, burek means the meat-filled spiral. The same pastry with cheese, spinach or pumpkin is called pita. In Croatia and Serbia, as in Turkey, burek is any filled dough of this kind.