Many of the Bulgarian products and dishes are known in various other parts of the world. Bulgarian dishes and drinks have their devotees even among the most refined gastronomes and tasters. Bulgarian-grown fruits and vegetables have a specific taste and flavour. Anyone who has tasted a Bulgarian apple, already knows why Eve was tempted by this fruit.

Regrettably, milliards of people all over the globe have lived their lives without ever tasting Bulgarian wine. Worldwide ignorance has veiled the fact that none other than our ancestors, in the person of godlike Dyonisus, discovered wine. And there is no doubt that the importance of this breakthrough goes far beyond the invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire.

It's a pity that very few foreigners know how to cook original Bulgarian meals. But for this, the world would have been a much cosier place to live in.

Under this heading we intend to offer you recipes from all parts of the country. You are supposed to fulfil them strictly. Everything else is easy enough and pleasant, because Bulgarian cooking is the creation of people agrarian that had no time to linger round the fire and that knew the value of products.
Each dish is related with a certain myth, belief or ritual. It is part of the wonderland tale.

You have the opportunity of not only varying your diet, but also of impressing your guests by offering them an original meal while garnishing it with some wise and exotic story from the Balkans.

 

SHOPSKA SALAD
/Mixed Vegetable Salad in the Shopp Style/

One of Shopps' great inventions is the Shopska Salad. In its ultimate form, it is pure white. As is also the Shopp costume. Shopska is like Shopps - pleasant and pungent.
May we say that it is an ancient invention and one of fundamental importance for civilization, although it is not mentioned in any encyclopaedia. Certainly, it is as important as the invention of the wheel and the use of fire. Shopska is beautiful, tasty, juicy, piquant, and flavoury. It is like Nature - indescribable. Nothing but this Salad must have led to the disclosure of dry distillation, after becoming crystal clear that such a fine relish needs a good and strong drink. So, Shopska is the authentic relish for brandy. In turn, the grand Brandy drink (made of grapes, plums, damsons, apples, apricots, peaches, etc.) is the traditional Bulgarian aperitif.
Shopska is also an excellent  dish for abstainers. It may be served as a single meal, as the first dish, together with the main dish, after meal, or just as a snack. You can offer it to your guests by way of welcome. You can serve it by way of goodbye.
To make Shopska Salad you need white cheese.Shopska would not be itself without cheese, and you will not be able to realize what we are talking about.

SHOPSKA /ONE WAY/

Directions:
Cut the onion in small pieces. Remove the stem and the seeds of the green peppers (raw or roasted and peeled). Cut them into stripes and then to smaller pieces.  Chop the hot pepper. Cut the cucumber in four lengthways and slice the pieces. (You may leave it unpeeled if ecologically safe.)  Mix everything, and add salt.  Form a pile of the mixed products in a salad dish or in portion salad plates. Sprinkle with the vegetable oil. Grate the cheese over the salad to form of a "snow cap". Garnish with the olives and the parsley, to please your own taste. You may also sprinkle with vinegar.

SHOPSKA /ANOTHER WAY/

 

Directions:
Wash and clean the vegetables. Remove the stem and the seeds of the peppers (raw or roasted and peeled). Slice them. Cut the tomatoes and the cucumber into small cubes. Chop the onion and the parsley. Mix everything, add salt and mix again. Shape the mixture into a "hemisphere" in the salad dish. Add the vegetable oil. Cover with an even layer of grated white cheese. You may put an olive, a tomato rose or several leaves of parsley on top of the salad. Add a hot pepper to each portion

 

KEBAPCHETA

/GRILLED "MEAT STICKS"/

Ingredients /to make 9-10 servings/:

1 kg meat /fatty mutton and tender beef/veal OR pork and beef/veal in a 1:1 ratio/

1 teaspoonful salt

pepper

1 cup water /add the salt to it/

ground allspice berries /pimento/ and cumin seeds

Directions:

Wash the meat and remove gristle and strings. Chop it into small cubes and pour over the salted water. Wait for about ten minutes and then mince it twice in a meat-mincer. Place mincemeat in a dish /non-metal surface - enameled, china, etc./, smooth it over and cover with a wet cloth. Place it in the fridge and leave it there overnight. On the next day mash in some pepper and a small amount of ground allspice berries and cumin seeds. (Onion may also be added, very finely cut, but the classical way excludes it). Leave the meat for another 3 or 4 hours to become seasoned. Shape 30 elongated meat cylinders (about 12 cm long and 2 cm thick). Kebapcheta are grilled on medium high heat (lard/grease the grill if the meat is not fatty enough). Turn at small intervals by rolling them over in the same direction. When well-grilled, kebapcheta are juicy, but not raw inside, with dark brown "grill-marks" on them.

Garnish with any of the following: chopped onion mixed with tomato paste, red tomatoes, eggplant mash, pepper relish /liutenitza/, stewed white beans, season salad to your choice or pickles.

 

KAVARMA KEBAP

At one of our visitor's request, we would like to add the kavarma kebap to our cuisine section.
The kavarma is a delicious Bulgarian dish, one of the country's "emblematic" meals.

We post five different recipes of kavarma kebap. You can choose the one that suits your taste best or most fully meets your criteria of healthy food.

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RECIPE 1

Directions:
Chop the meat and fry it in the lard. Take it out of the fat and put it in a dish.

Stew the fine-cut leeks in the same fat. Add salt, the tomato paste, the pepper and the red pepper. Pour in 1/2 cupful of water, add the wine and put the meat back.

Stew on low fire until left in its own juice.
Serve sprinkled with chopped onions, parsley and a small hot pepper.
Boiled rice or fried potatoes are suitable garnishes.

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RECIPE 2

Directions:
Cut the meat into small pieces and brown it together with the thinly sliced onions, carrots and celery. Add the leeks cut in pieces, the salt, the pepper, the red pepper, the tomato paste and 1 cupful of hot water.
Let the meat stew for 15-20 minutes on a slow fire and then add the wine, the bay leaves and the hot peppers. The meal is done when it is left in its own juice.

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RECIPE 3

 

Directions:

Brown the chopped meat in the oil. Add the leeks cut in circles. When they are cooked, add the tomato paste, the red pepper, and the wine.
Add 1/3 cupful of water and cook the  kavarma on a slow fire for about 10-12 minutes.
Serve dish hot, left in its own juice.

 

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RECIPE 4

 

Directions:
Pound the meat, chop it and add a little salt. Fry the meat in the previously heated fat until it gets tender. Remove the meat and stew in the same fat the cut leeks and peppers, last add the hot pepper. Put the meat back, add the beaten eggs and cook until they thicken.
Serve hot and garnish with fried potatoes, mustard and salad.

 

RECIPE 5

Directions:
Beat down the meat and cut it in morsels, sprinkle it with a small quantity of salt and leave it for 1/2-1 hour to become seasoned. Heat the fat and, using a large spoon, dip the chopped meat in it to get lightly browned. Take it out and put it in a warmed up dish, with 1 spoonful of bouillon on the bottom.
Brown lightly, in the same fat, the cut onion, take it out of the fat and add it to the meat. Sprinkle over the salt, pepper and red pepper mixed together and then mix gently meat and onion.
Pour the bouillon and the wine into the fat, add the garlic (plus a lump of sugar, if you like), and salt. Boil the sauce and thicken it with the flour (first mixed into a small quantity of cold clear broth or water), boil again while stirring and then remove from plate.
Serve the kavarma with fried or mashed potatoes, couscous, noodles and the like. Serve the sauce in a gravy bowl and offer a salad of fresh or pickled vegetables.
If you use mutton for this recipe, after browning the meat add to it the onion, the flour, the wine, the pepper and a cupful of warm water and stew until the meat is done.

 

 

LIUTENITZA

/Pepper Relish/

In Bulgaria, liutenitza is produced in canning factories (and sold in stores), but is also made at home. Even home-made liutenitza, however, is usually prepared in large amounts and preserved in glass jars to use in winter time, when there are no fresh vegetables. It is used for garnishing or for spreading on bread. They also use it as an ingredient for other spreads and sauces (e.g. mixed with white brined cheese, curds or mayonnaise).

In some regions, local people call liutenitza a dish of stewed onions, peppers and tomatoes (in various proportions). Some hot peppers might be added to this meal. In Bulgarian the name of liutenitza comes from liut [ljut], which means hot.

Here follow three different recipes. You can begin by trying with smaller quantities to see if you like the result.

Liutenitza 1

Directions:

Wash and dice tomatoes and stew them well. Then smash and strain them and boil the juice to obtain paste. (Ready-made tomato paste may be used, but the necessary quantity should be estimated/
Wash the peppers and remove stem and seeds. Cut them into pieces and boil them in water adding a small amount of salt. While still hot, press and strain them. Mix the mess with the tomato paste and add sunflower oil and some salt /to taste/ and simmer the mixture until it is thick and begins to "fry". While still hot put the cooked relish in well-dried small glass jars. When already cool, pour some sunflower oil on top to preserve it.
It is served mixed with smashed garlic, vinegar and ground walnuts.

Liutenitza 2

Directions:
Roast the peppers and the eggplants and peel them. Mince peppers and eggplants with tomatoes and stew them stirring all the time until the stirring blade begins to leave a "furrow" on the bottom of the cooking pan. Pour into small preserve jars. Wait to cool and then store.
 

 

Liutenitza 3

 

Directions:
Wash, cut and mince or grate the tomatoes and cook them in a large shallow dish. When most of the water has evaporated and the mess has thickened, add small peppers /seed and stem removed/ pierced in two or three places. Add oil, sugar, salt and dill. Cook it through stirring continuously. Pour while hot in well-dried and warmed up jars. When mixture cools, add some vegetable oil /1.5 cm deep/ on top.

Based on experience, it is better to can the jars and boil them for 5-10 minutes, as a more reliable way to keep them from getting spoiled.
In some households they also add grated carrots, as well as caraway seeds and pepper for flavouring.
 

One more way to prepare liutenitza is to use the grated inner "flesh" of red peppers, peeling tomatoes and removing seeds. In this case, it would not be necessary to strain them, but the procedure takes more time.

 

(The recipe comes from the cookery book by Natzko Sotirov, head cook and chef de cuisine with Tsar Boris III, 1400 recipes in cookery and confectionery, Solaris-N & Tekla Aleksieva, 1995)

To cook veiled eggs break them from a little distance into the boiling water, first adding to it vinegar and salt - 25-30 g of salt and 50-60 g of vinegar per litre of water. Fill the pot with water (half-full). Add salt and vinegar. Bring the water to a boil and then break the eggs one at a time. Boil for 4 minutes, long enough to let them solidify. Take them out with a spoon and immerse them straight away, only for a moment, in cold water in order to keep them soft and stop the process of solidification. The yolks of the cooked veiled eggs should be soft and wrapped (shrouded) by the whites. Add garnishing. As usual, two eggs are prepared for one serving.

Put the veiled eggs on a base of yoghourt and pour over them well-melted hot butter seasoned with a little bit of red pepper. Serve while warm.

The eggs in the Panagyurishte style are one of the several recipes in the veiled eggs chapter offered by Natzko Sotirov.

"VEILED" EGGS II

The veiled eggs recipe, as described in Sophia Smolnitzka's cookery book (The Art of Cooking, Sofia, Tehnika, 1980), says that the eggs are boiled in clear soup (or defatted meat soup, or in salted water).

Boil the clear-soup (bouillon) and add vinegar and salt. Break the eggs one at a time and cook them until the whites get veiled (solid) and then take them out with a scummer and place them in a warm buttered dish.
Serve the eggs with beaten up yoghourt seasoned with smashed garlic, dill, salt and vegetable oil.

 

                                             TARATOR  /COLD SUMMERTIME SOUP/

 

Ingredients

3 cucumbers 500 g of yoghourt 8 cloves of garlic 4 spoonfuls of vegetable oil 70 g walnut kernels a bunch of dill 1 teaspoonful of salt

Directions:

Cut up finely the garlic and the walnut kernels. Peel and then grate the cucumbers. Beat up the yoghourt and add the other ingredients to it. Season with salt and vegetable oil. Mix well and add cold water to thin. Mince the dill and sprinkle it over the soup before serving.

 

HOW TO PREPARE YOGHOURT AND WHITE CHEESE

As is known, the Bulgarian yoghourt is unique and familiar to customers all over the world. Moreover, the Bulgarian people produce also delicious white cheese, curds and other products of fresh milk. This time we are going to give you several recipes for preparing such products.

Although milk is a drink, it contains 12.5 per cent of solid substance and more than 100 components. In one liter of cow milk there are 35 g of proteins, 46 g of sugar, as well as almost all kinds of microelements and vitamins. Besides being wholesome, fresh milk is very easily assimilated by human organism. Various milk products are made of milk - yoghourt, white cheese, cheese, cream, curds, butter, etc. - and they are widely used in the national Bulgarian cooking practice.
 

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YOGHOURT

The Bulgarian sour milk is an original national product. Outside Bulgaria it is known by the name of "yoghourt”. It is supposed that the Bulgarian sour milk was connected with sheep-breeding, which can be traced back to the time of the Thracian and protobulgarians. Shepherds made a great variety of products using the large output of milk. It is believed that the best masters of yoghourt came from the Razgrad district. Yoghourt is obtained from full-cream milk after lacto-acidic fermentation at a temperature of 40-45^o C. Depending on the type of milk used, the sour milk may be sheep, cow, buffalo, or mixed yoghourt. The greatest amount of fats is found in buffalo yoghourt - 7.5 per cent, followed by sheep yoghourt - 6.5 per cent and cow yoghourt - 3.6 per cent. Here follows a description of how you yourself can produce Bulgarian sour milk, fulfilling the recipe of the Razgrad masters:
 
 

Directions:

Boil the milk and let it cool to 38-40^o C (it should be a little warmer than your hand).

Pour 1/4 teacupful of it on the portion of sour milk required to start fermentation and mix well. Then add this mixture to the fresh milk. Stir well, cover the pot with a lid, wrap it with a woolen blanket and leave it in a warm premise.
The temperature of 38-40^o C should be maintained for three hours, while the sour milk fermentation develops.

The yoghourt thus obtained is kept in the refrigerator.

 

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WHITE CHEESE

The white brined cheese is a concentrated milk food with varying taste and flavour, depending on its production technology. It has been home produced since ancient times. Its is served as an appetizer, or as an ingredient of many dishes of the Bulgarian cuisine. Here follows a recipe for the preparation of  brined sheep cheese, which is a basic diet of the Bulgarian people. It can be consumed separately or in combination with other products.
 
 

Directions:

Filter the milk.

Warm it up to a temperature of 70^o C for 10 minutes, not allowing it to boil and then cool it to 33-34^o C.
Add the rennet diluted by boiled and cooled water in a proportion of 1:10, stir well the milk and leave it at the same temperature for one hour to turn into cheese.

The cheese thus produced should be drained in a cheese-cloth /gauze/ for 2 hours in order to remove the whey.

The cheese obtained and drained should be placed in a strainer and pressed by weights for at least 6 hours.

Then you can cut it into lumps and put them in a salting brine. It is made of 1 liter of water and 200 g of salt. The cheese should be steeped in the brine for not less than 24 hours, in order to become lightly salty in taste. Finally, arrange the cheese lumps in the utensils where they will be preserved and pour preservation brine /120 g of salt per 1 liter of water/ on it.

The cheese will be ready for consumption in 60 days and during this time temperature in the room should measure about 10^o C. Later you can store it in a refrigerator.

This is a popular Bulgarian drink also typical of other Balkan countries. The boza is a thick, fermented beverage (containing up to 4 percent alcohol) with a sourish or sweetish  taste. The boza is made of various kinds of flour (barley, oats, corn, wheat), but boza of best quality and taste is made of millet flour.

Here follow instructions for making boza at home. The recipe is meant for 5 littres.
 
 

 

Ingredients

5 l water 2 teacupfuls flour 2 teacupfuls sugar 1 teacupful boza or home-made ferment

Directions:

Slightly roast  the flour (to become rosy in colour). Take care not to get it burnt. Mix it with only a bit of lukewarm water. Pour the mixture into the pot filled with the rest of the water and put it on the plate. Add the sugar and leave the liquid to boil stirring it once in a while. Keep boiling for 5-6 minutes still stirring. Remove the pot from the fire and let it cool. Add 1 teacupful boza or home-made ferment. Leave the mixture in a warm place for 2-3 days to cause fermentation. When the boza is ready, pour it in bottles and store in a cool place (refrigerator).

Home-made boza ferment

 

Ingredients

1-2 spoonfuls slightly roasted flour 1 teacupful tepid water 1 spoonful sugar

How to make the boza ferment:

Mix the slightly roasted flour (take care to keep it from burning) with the water and stir well. Add the sugar. Leave the mess in a warm place for 2-3 days to ferment, stirring it from time to time.

Note: The teacupful of boza or home-made ferment can be replaced by 6-7 moistened and crumbled slices of wholemeal bread /or toast/, or by 6-7 spoonfuls leaven. In this case before storage the boza has to be filtered (without pressing).

There is reason to suppose that for causing fermentation it is also possible to use a mixture of a little bit of yeast, water or milk, and a teaspoonful of sugar, left beforehand to rise.

Obviously, to become a good boza maker one has to experiment.

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The boza ale has recently gained wider popularity. Here follows a quotation from the Bizarre News ezine issue of January 17, 2007:

 

Breast-Enhancing Beer Gains Popularity 

LONDON, Since Bulgaria joined the European Union, sales of Boza Ale, which claims to give women bigger breasts, has skyrocketed. European men have been purchasing the beer, made from yeast and fermented flour, for European women since the extra taxes were removed with EU participation, Britain's the Sun reported Monday. Bar owners and shopkeepers are also stocking up, the report said. The Sun said a Romanian man, Barmy Constantin Barbu, traveled across the Dunube River just to purchase a case of Boza Ale for his wife. "I really hope I see an improvement," Barbu said.