Delicious Homemade Banjalučki Ćevap
Why Not Make Your Own at Home Today.
Ćevap or Ćevapi are the national grilled meat specialty for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ćevap has a long history in the Balkans. The first Ćevap was brought here by the Ottomans. The Ottomans occupied the country, and the region, from 1463 to 1878.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has the longest history of Ćevap making and there are varieties among the cities.
Each bigger city or region has its own recipe. Sarajevo Ćevapi are maybe the best known, but and most popular, we cannot ignore the Ćevapi from Banja Luka (Ćevapi cooked in a block of four Ćevap) or from Travnik, where the Ćevapi are served in a portion of 20, with Somun (local flat bread), soaked in broth.
Zenica also has its own style, traditionally served with roasted peppers.
Some people like to consider Ćevapi as Bosnian fast food, but I am too not sure of that.
👩🍳 The Method 🥘
You will need about 500 grams of freshly ground beef with at least 20 percent fat, 2 to 3 garlic cloves, 100 millilitres of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, one or half a teaspoon of black pepper, depending on your taste, and half a teaspoon of baking soda. First, put 100 millilitres of water into a small saucepan.
Chop the garlic and add it to the water. Bring to the boil for one to two minutes and let it cool. When it's cool, strain. The next step is to put your ground meat into a mixing bowl. Add the salt, pepper, and baking soda. and mix it well for at least 10 to 15 minutes.
When the garlic water is cooled off, then add it to the meat and mix it until you get a nice and doughy sort of consistency. This should take you about 10 to 15 minutes. So you mix the meat until you get a gluey consistency. The meat must be sticky.
Cover the bowl and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours or more, but make sure you mix it one or two times during that period. Now it's time to shape your ćevap. Mix once more after taking out of the fridge. To shape your ćevap into perfect sausages, you can use a freezer bag or a confectioner pipe.
Whatever you have handy. You can even use a funnel. Make sure you place a little water with your hands on the surface where you will make the ćevap so that they don't stick to it. My top tip, don't use oil as they will slip and break. Fill up your funnel. Make sure that all the air is squeezed out of the meat and the funnel and start squeezing the meat out.
You will see small sausages coming out and when you are happy with the length, they should be about 4 - 5 cm long, then you cut them with a sharp knife.
Once you are done with the whole meat. Then you can wet your hands and top and tail the ćevap so that they have even better shape.
Once that's completed it's time to grill the ćevap. You can use an electric grill or grill pan, or they taste the best if you have a coal grill. I use my grill pan. I brush the pan with some heat resistant oil and make sure it's very hot. The ćevap is placed on a grill on both sides for about 5 to 7 minutes, depending how thick they are and how you like them cooked.
When you turn them over or halfway through cooking them, make sure you place pizza bread or naan bread on top of the cevap to get them nice and steamed and also dip them in a little bit, little bit in the juice that comes out of the ćevap. This gives an amazing flavour to the bread. Personally, I like to soak some of the fat from the meat onto the bread and then grill them.
And I like them when they're nice and crunchy.
When it comes to serving the ćevap, we usually serve it lepinja or local flatbread, but you can use pita or naan.
We always eat our ćevap with sliced onions. I hope that you like this recipe, and as It does take a little bit of planning in advance, but you won't regret the hard work. I promise. So that's how you make the ćevap. Please, uh, tell us if you like this recipe, if you are going to try it and see you next time.
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