Bulgarian Guvech with Feta and Tomatoes

Name: Bulgarian Guvech with Feta and Tomatoes: Baked Cheese Casserole
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: Bulgarian cuisine
Ingredients: Feta (brynza) 300 g; Tomato 1-2; Red bell pepper 2; Butter 30 g; Egg 2; Spices: savory, paprika, salt to taste; Fresh parsley for garnish

☆ Rate it

50 mins

Feta baked with tomatoes and vegetables in the oven is a typical Balkan dish.

Balkan cuisine is a collection of the traditions of the local and regional cuisines of the Balkan peoples. Its most typical representatives are the national cuisines of Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania and a good dozen other countries of Southeastern Europe.

These cuisines are quite similar overall, although they can differ greatly in the details, shaped by local traditions and history. The traditions of the Caucasus peoples and of Asia had a big influence on them. It is worth remembering that the Bulgarians historically came from Asia and moved to the Balkans only around the time of the Mongol raids, where they merged with the Thracians and the Slavic tribes.

The wide use of vegetables, fruit, and aromatic and spicy herbs makes Balkan cuisines a unique phenomenon in cooking. Most dishes are tied to particular national and religious traditions. I once read a book about the national traditions of the Balkan Slavs. I was surprised by the incredible number of holidays in the year, each with its own menu. For example, St. John’s Day, celebrated in the Balkans on 7 January, calls for boiled rye (apparently an analogue of the familiar kutia), a cheese casserole, pork ribs with cabbage (much like bigos with pork), and roast pork. These are unique recipes, often seasoned with local national color.

Feta-style brined cheese (brynza) varies a lot from place to place. First of all, it matters what milk the cheese is made from: cow, sheep, goat and so on. The texture ranges from hard to soft as butter. Still, I have never seen a brynza softer than Greek feta. Greek salad with brynza, or rather with feta, is altogether a calling card of Greek national cuisine.

Someone brought us some good brynza as a favor. We decided to bake it with vegetables, with tomatoes and peppers. And by the way, this brynza with tomatoes, a cheese casserole, turned out excellent!

More with feta, tomatoes and bell peppers

Shepherd’s Salad

1 h

Roasted Vegetable Salad with Brynza

45 min

Shopska Salad with Roasted Pepper

30 min

Greek Salad

20 min

More tomatoes recipes

Ingredients

2 servings

Feta (brynza) 300 g
Tomato 1-2
Red bell pepper 2
Butter 30 g
Egg 2
Spices: savory, paprika, salt to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish

Step-by-step recipe

Turn on cook modeKeeps your screen from turning off while the recipe is open

Preparing the feta and vegetables

Besides salads and appetizers, there are many hot dishes traditionally made with brynza in the Balkans. Baked brynza with tomatoes and peppers is a cheese base, vegetables and spices. And each time the seemingly same dish turns out completely different. Most often such dishes are cooked in clay pots, either individual or large. In Bulgaria the individual pots are affectionately called guvech. Usually, or rather almost always, a guvech holds meat, fish or poultry. But the simplest and best-loved dish is a cheese casserole, a guvech with brynza, or sirene (Bulgarian). And there are as many recipes as there are people who cook it.
Still, restaurant menus do have certain established names: brynza Shopska style, Dobrudzha style, hunter style and so on. The recipes are in fact very similar. The difference is in the spices, the cooking time, and certain ingredients unique to that recipe. But they share one thing: an egg is broken over the almost finished dish and baked, and the yolk should stay slightly runny.
Get all the ingredients ready.
Take the feta out of the brine and let the liquid drain. Cut the feta into cubes of 2-2.5 cm. Brynza usually hardly crumbles, so it should work out.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel them. You don’t have to remove the seeds. Cut the tomatoes into small, thin wedges.
Bake the red bell pepper in the oven or microwave until the flesh is soft, then remove the stem and seeds. Cut the flesh of the baked pepper into thin strips.
By the way, the way of cutting the feta and vegetables differs a lot from recipe to recipe. Sometimes they advise cutting the brynza coarsely into slabs, the tomato into cubes, and not baking the pepper at all.

Assembling the casserole

Layer the feta and tomato. Grease a ceramic baking dish, or individual pots, whichever you have, with butter. Spread the diced feta in an even layer. Level the cheese gently so you don’t crush the cubes. Spread the sliced tomato over the cheese, then salt lightly. But brynza is usually salty enough, so be very careful with the salt, or don’t salt at all.
Lay the sliced baked pepper over the tomato. The pepper strips should cover the whole dish or pot completely.
Sprinkle with dried savory (chubritsa), rubbing it between your fingers. Then sprinkle with sweet (or hot) paprika. One teaspoon is enough.
As for the spice, Bulgarians once even recommended a ready blend, the Balkan “table chubritsa”, made of salt, savory, paprika and some minor additions. I tried it, and the cheese casserole turns out great.
Shave a piece of butter with a knife and scatter the pieces over the dish. You can also simply melt the butter and pour it over everything. Do whatever is convenient for you.

Baking

Bake the dish at 220°C for 20 minutes, uncovered. One important point: I was once warned not to put clay cookware into a hot oven. So decide for yourself how to do it. You can put the pot into a cold oven and switch on the heat, and the oven reaches the right temperature in a few minutes. Or put it into a preheated oven. It takes some time for the whole dish to heat through. I estimate the dish spends about 8-10 minutes cooking at the full temperature.
Take the dish out of the oven and pour the eggs over it. Break two eggs into a separate small bowl, then carefully pour them over the feta and vegetables. You don’t have to cover everything with egg. Just pour on as much as you can.
Return the dish to the oven and bake for another 5-7 minutes, until the egg white turns white and the yolk sets but stays a little (just a tiny bit) runny.

Serving

Sprinkle the casserole with chopped parsley. A portion-sized casserole is usually served right in the pots. If it is feta with tomatoes for two, like mine, it is better to serve it in the baking dish, and everyone can transfer some to their plate.
Serve the dish only hot, without letting it cool, and certainly don’t reheat it afterwards! The casserole goes exceptionally well with a glass of dry wine.
Feta with tomatoes, a cheese casserole, is a tasty and wholesome dish. It is worth trying!