Ingredients
Bread
- 2lepinja
- or 2 thick flatbreads
- somun or pitta will do
The filling
- 150 gkajmak
- or 150 g clotted cream
- mixed with soft cheese
- 4eggs
- 200 mlpretop
- the drippings from roast meat
- or 200 ml rich meat stock
- with its fat
Sometimes added
- a little roast pork or lamb
- chopped small
- black pepper
- salt
To serve
- straight from the pan
- raw onion
- yoghurt
- at breakfast in Zlatibor
Directions
- Roast meat drippings go over the whole thing. The soft inside is pulled out or pressed down. Reduce it down to concentrate it. Keep the fat rather than skimming it off. Lepinja is a soft round flatbread.
- Pour off the liquid into a jug. Keep both the fat and the juices. Warm it through before using it. Reduce a rich meat stock by half. Add a spoonful of rendered fat to it.
- Season it well with salt and pepper. It should be strongly flavoured. Cut the lepinja most of the way through. Leave one edge attached as a hinge.
- Pull out some of the soft inside. Do not tear through the bottom crust. Put a heavy pan in a hot oven. Let it heat through for five minutes. A hot pan crisps the bread base.
- Set the hollowed bread in the hot pan. Spread kajmak generously into the hollow. Scatter chopped roast meat over the kajmak. Use whatever roast meat you have. Break the eggs over the kajmak. Keep the yolks whole if you can. Season them with salt and pepper. Pour the warm drippings over everything.
- Pour it around the bread as well. Do not be shy with the quantity. Heat the oven to two hundred degrees. Bake it for about twelve minutes. Judging when it is done takes a look.
- Take it out while they still wobble. Serving it is done in the pan. Take the pan straight to the table. Set it down on a board or a cloth. Serve raw onion rings alongside it. It does not keep or reheat well. Make it and eat it straight away.
Technique
- Pretop is the liquid from roasting meat, the drippings, fat and juices together, and the dish came from roadside roast meat shops that roasted whole lambs and pigs; it uses a by-product rather than wasting it, and that origin is written into the dish. Rich meat stock reduced with its fat kept in is the nearest substitute, and the atlas says plainly that it will not be identical.
- Kajmak is made by heating milk, skimming the skin, salting it and layering it up to mature; young kajmak is mild and creamy while mature is sharper and saltier, and Zlatibor is known for its kajmak particularly.
- The bread should sit in a pool of the drippings and soak up from below as it bakes, which is the point of the dish; a dry komplet has missed the idea entirely.
Substitutions
- Rich reduced meat stock with its fat stands in for pretop.
- Clotted cream mixed with a soft salty cheese approximates kajmak.
Variations
- Chopped roast meat is scattered in by some and left out by others.
- The pulled bread crumb is put back to soak or discarded, both are done.
- It is eaten with raw onion, with yoghurt, or with both.
History
Zlatibor breakfast of flatbread baked with kajmak, egg and meat drippings, assembled and served in one pan.
Frequently asked questions
What is Komplet lepinja?
Komplet lepinja is a street food from Serbia: užice flatbread loaded with kajmak, egg, roast drippings. Zlatibor breakfast of flatbread baked with kajmak, egg and meat drippings, assembled and served in one pan.
How long does Komplet lepinja take to make?
Komplet lepinja takes 20 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 2. It is rated medium to make.
What can I substitute in Komplet lepinja?
Yes, within limits. Rich reduced meat stock with its fat stands in for pretop. Clotted cream mixed with a soft salty cheese approximates kajmak.
What is the most important thing to get right in Komplet lepinja?
Roast meat drippings go over the whole thing. The soft inside is pulled out or pressed down. Reduce it down to concentrate it. Keep the fat rather than skimming it off. Lepinja is a soft round flatbread.
