Brynza Salad with Fresh Vegetables and Roasted Pepper

Name: Brynza Salad with Fresh Vegetables and Roasted Pepper
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: Bulgarian cuisine
Ingredients: Brynza 200 g; Tomato 3-4; Cucumbers 3-4; Sweet onion 1; Red bell pepper 5-6; Olives 10-12; Parsley 0.5 bunch; Olive oil 50 ml; Wine or balsamic vinegar, salt, oregano to taste

Adding various cheeses to salads is common everywhere. In the Balkans and the Carpathians, for example, brynza is often added to dishes. The Balkan vegetable salad with brynza is a widespread dish in local cuisines, a good appetizer or even a vegetable side dish. Such salads are easy to make and very healthy, as long as the brynza is fresh and good quality.

The most popular brynza salad in Bulgaria is Shopska salad. They say that in the socialist era the country's leaders ordered someone to come up with a salad from the country's characteristic products that would become the calling card of its cuisine. That's how the simple and incredibly tasty Shopska salad was born: cucumbers, tomatoes, herbs and brynza. The similar Greek vegetable salad is made on the same principle, but with the softer feta cheese.

It so happened that we fell in love with brynza in Bulgaria. Amazingly, the Bulgarian word “sirene” simply means cheese. Brynza is a complex product, fermented by particular microorganisms, and it is made in huge quantities from almost any available milk: sheep, cow, goat, buffalo, or a mix of different kinds.

When we buy a nice cheese for a salad, we hardly suspect what a complex process the milk goes through before it becomes cheese. The ripening alone can last up to two months. Brined brynza is usually white, slightly yellowish or cream in colour. It is firm, may break a little, but practically never crumbles by itself. The cheese tastes slightly salty, so a brynza salad needs no extra salt.

We make different salads with brynza: the ordinary Shopska, Shopska with roasted pepper, and often we add soft brynza instead of feta to our home Greek salad. During the day you can also cut up some fresh vegetables and add a piece of cheese for a great lunch.

What I like most is brynza made from sheep's milk, which unfortunately is rare here. When we manage to buy that cheese, we bake it, or make baked brynza with tomatoes, or the wonderful Bulgarian appetizer, chushki byurek. When there are plenty of fresh young vegetables, we make Shopska salad or any other brynza salad almost constantly. By the way, you can perfectly well sprinkle cheese over an ordinary cucumber and tomato salad.

More with feta

Shopska Salad

Fried Eggplant and Roasted Pepper Salad with Feta

Shepherd’s Salad

Mish-mash – Bulgarian scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers and cheese

Strapatsada – Greek Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Feta

Ingredients

2 servings

Brynza 200 g
Tomato 3-4
Cucumbers 3-4
Sweet onion 1
Red bell pepper 5-6
Olives 10-12
Parsley 0.5 bunch
Olive oil 50 ml
Wine or balsamic vinegar, salt, oregano to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Naturally, first of all a brynza salad needs very fresh, natural cheese. There is plenty to choose from, by the way. And the freshest young vegetables – ideally straight from the garden… Dreams, dreams… You need small ripe tomatoes, such as the “chumachok” variety, which make perfect pickled tomatoes. You need small green fresh cucumbers, sweet salad onion, herbs and, preferably, olives, which have a certain charm.
Only the bell peppers are heat-treated for this salad. With well-roasted peppers the dish becomes incredibly tasty. You can use more pepper, by the way, which will only improve the flavour. We usually roast the pepper in the microwave, but to boost the salad's aroma it is worth roasting it over a flame or in the oven. The easiest way is to pierce each pepper with a knife anywhere, so steam can escape while roasting, and brush the peppers with a little vegetable oil. Put the peppers in a baking dish and place in an oven preheated to 220-230°C.
Bell peppers roast quite quickly. Gradually they lose some of their moisture and begin to “sag”. After that you need to turn them quite often so they roast evenly. As soon as you are happy with how done the peppers are, take the dish out of the oven and cover it with a plate or plastic wrap. This helps the thin outer skin, which is like a film, to peel off.
Carefully peel the outer film off the completely cooled roasted peppers; it comes off easily with your fingers. Pull off the stems together with the seeds and, if possible, clean any remaining seeds out of the inside of the pepper. Cut each pepper lengthwise into 4-8 pieces, as you like. The pepper releases quite a lot of liquid, by the way, which you can either pour off or add together with the dressing.
Once the roasted pepper is ready, you can start on the salad. Wash the young green cucumbers thoroughly, dry them and cut off the tips. Make sure the cucumbers aren't bitter, or the flavour of the salad will be spoiled. Cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise and dice them. Put the diced cucumbers in a large bowl.
Wash the small tomatoes and pat off any drops of water. Cut the tomatoes into large wedges, removing the stems and the core. Add the tomatoes to the salad, and at the same time add the olives, black or green, as you like.
Peel a small sweet onion and cut it into strips. Add the onion to the salad. Sweet salad onion gives the vegetable salad a hint of sharpness, and the flavour improves considerably. If you can't get salad onion, you can try adding finely chopped green onion tops.
Add the roasted pepper, cut into strips, to the brynza salad. If there is liquid left from the pepper, you can keep it for the dressing. Sprinkle the vegetables with a pinch of oregano and add salt.
Pick all the leaves from the parsley sprigs, discarding the coarse stems. Since all the vegetables for the salad are cut fairly large, there is no need to chop the parsley further – let the brynza salad have whole parsley leaves.
Toss the salad gently so you don't damage the tomatoes and pepper too much, just until the salt dissolves. In a cup or bowl, mix the olive oil with 0.5 tsp of grape or balsamic vinegar and, if you like, add a little of the liquid left after roasting the peppers. Whisk the dressing with a fork and pour it over the salad. Toss gently once more.
Divide the salad among salad bowls. Cut the fresh brined brynza into cubes, about twice as large as the vegetables for Olivier salad. Lay the brynza on top of the vegetables and garnish the brynza salad with a sprig of parsley and sliced hot pepper.
Brynza salad doesn't need chilling and should be served as soon as it is dressed. Such salads usually make a great appetizer with an aperitif at the start of lunch or dinner. But they are also a good side dish, especially with Bulgarian kebapche, grilled minced meat sausages.