Balkan street food: Iconic Cevapcici rolls

DW (English)

Grilled meat rolls, known as Cevapcici, are a staple across the Balkans. How do they differ from country to country?

Transcript

00:00Lightly seasoned, succulently grilled, Cevapcici is enough to make any meat lover's mouth water,

00:07a Balkan classic.

00:09But who makes the best?

00:10To find out, we visit Bosnia, Serbia, and Romania.

00:15Everybody knows it's a Bosnian specialty.

00:18The best is definitely from Serbia.

00:22The taste of Romania.

00:24Our dishes are one of a kind.

00:30Our first stop is Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

00:35In the old town, we're greeted by the sumptuous smell of cevapi, as it's known here at every

00:40street corner.

00:42I'm Salim Ogresic, third generation owner of Nuna Cevap in Sarajevo.

00:49It was first opened by my grandfather in 1966.

00:55Cevapi are a culinary remnant of Ottoman rule in the Balkans.

01:02We only use beef for our cevap.

01:05That's how it was originally made, so we keep it that way.

01:08Beef only.

01:11The mince is salted and kneaded.

01:14That's it.

01:15It's then pressed through a machine and portioned.

01:18That way, Salim can work much faster.

01:21Salim swears by charcoal.

01:23He tells us it's the only way to give the cevapi their characteristic taste and smell.

01:32How long the cevap take depends on the temperature of the grill.

01:38We prepare them so that they're ready in around 7 to 10 minutes.

01:44You can tell they're ready to be taken off the grill by their color.

01:50When the meat is golden brown on the outside, then they're done.

01:58In Sarajevo, cevapi are usually served on flatbread, and importantly, the bread too

02:03has to be grilled and crisp.

02:09The bread absorbs the smoke from the grill and the fat from the cevap.

02:17This makes the bread nice and soft, and improves the taste.

02:23Finally, the cevapi is topped with raw onions, as is traditional in Sarajevo, and optionally

02:31with a dollop of kajmak, a kind of sour cream.

02:35Depending on your appetite, you might order 5, 10, or if you're feeling brave, 15 cevapi.

02:46I like them when they're freshly grilled.

02:48I don't like that they're kept on the grill too long.

02:53I eat so many of them.

02:54They're as much a part of my life as bread.

02:58Onions are key.

02:59They're just part of it.

03:02Bosnia is proud of its cevapi.

03:04It's even seeking protected status for the classic dish.

03:07But it's not the only country babbling for cevapi primacy.

03:11Serbia, for example.

03:14Here in the country's third largest city, Nis, they have their own version of the classic.

03:19Here cevapcici is seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little garlic water.

03:26We've been offering the same quality since day one.

03:29People know that.

03:30That's why they love our cevapcici.

03:32They're made from pure beef, delicious, incomparable.

03:37The cevapcici from Sarajevo and ours are very similar, but the Serbian ones are still better.

03:43I think in Sarajevo they eat the cevapcici more on the go, like we eat burek.

03:49But here, we sit down in order to enjoy them.

03:55Next up, Romania.

03:57Here in Bucharest, the dish is known as mič.

04:00Here they contain an ingredient found nowhere else.

04:03Baking soda.

04:05And it was precisely this that the EU wanted to ban some time ago.

04:09But the Romanians prevailed and saved their decades-old recipe.

04:19We only put a little baking soda in it.

04:21We used to overdo it, because that's just the way we Romanians are.

04:25It makes the mič bigger.

04:28With baking soda, they almost double in size.

04:30It's delicious.

04:31It's sausages without the skin.

04:33It makes it easier to eat.

04:39You're drawn in by the aroma.

04:41I wanted to buy groceries, but now I have to eat mič here first before I can go in.

04:49Whether small, big, with or without pepper, or even a dash of garlic water, in the Balkans

04:55cevapcici are the star of the show.

04:57Have you tried them?

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