Bulgarian Pepper Salad with Pickled Onion | Easy Appetizer
Salads·Vegetable Salads

Bulgarian Pepper Salad with Pickled Onion | Easy Appetizer

Bulgaria is a generous country, and its people are good-natured and cheerful. Guests are welcomed gladly, treated from the heart and are hard to let go. In any tavern you will always be offered a glass of excellent homemade rakia (top-quality grape brandy) with a piece of sirene cheese, a Bulgarian salad or another cold appetizer.

A simple salad of fried sweet pepper with pickled onion is as easy as it gets to make and is an ideal appetizer in every sense. Sweet pepper is a common vegetable crop, and the “Bulgarian pepper” is one of its kinds. The fruit is large and fleshy, great for salads and other dishes. Interestingly, in many countries sweet pepper is also simply called “Bulgarian pepper”.

Whatever the salad, it almost always contains bell pepper. They say that half a century ago the leaders of Bulgaria set the task of inventing a salad from the best Bulgarian produce. That is how the shopska salad appeared: cucumbers, tomatoes and sirene cheese. Yes, it is a masterpiece! But most Bulgarian cooks, without any agreement, began adding bell pepper to their salads.

Bulgarian salad could not be simpler: roasted or fried bell pepper and pickled onion.

Professionals usually prefer to snack on salo with garlic. But we, ordinary people, who see an appetizer as good food at the start of a meal, love tasty salads. Make a Bulgarian salad of fried or roasted pepper with pickled onion for your family or for a get-together with friends. I am sure everyone will be happy!

Bulgarian salad

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Ingredients

2 servings

  • Sweet bell pepper 2-4
  • Sweet red onion 1
  • Wine vinegar 1-2 tbsp
  • Vegetable oil 3-4 tbsp
Bell pepper and onion.

Step-by-step recipe

  1. Bulgarian fried pepper salad is easy and quick to make. Peel the onion and chop it not too finely. Put it in a bowl or cup and pour the wine vinegar over it. Leave it to marinate for 30 mins.

    Marinating the onion.
  2. The pepper can be roasted or fried. Wash the pepper and remove the seeds. Cut it into small slices. Pour oil into a hot frying pan and add the pepper. Stir so the oil coats the pepper with a thin film. Fry the pepper for 10 mins.

    Peeling and cutting the pepper.
  3. Reduce the heat and stew the pepper under a lid until soft. Then remove the lid and fry until the surface of the pepper just begins to turn slightly golden. Fried pepper has a unique, delicate flavor of its own.

    Frying the pepper.
  4. The fried pepper must cool to room temperature, otherwise it will cook the pieces of onion when you mix the salad. By the way, it is worth preparing all the ingredients ahead and chilling them.
  6. Drain all the liquid from the pickled onion and squeeze it out a little. Add the pickled onion to the fried pepper and stir.

    Mixing the pepper with the onion.
  7. Do not salt it, or dress it with mayonnaise and other synthetic stuff! The salad is served only with vegetable oil. If you have the oil left from frying the pepper, it works best. Alternatively, you can add 1 tbsp of oil from a jar of pepper in oil. Or, simpler still, ordinary sunflower oil.
  8. In Bulgaria, pepper is often not cut up before roasting or frying, but served whole, always peeled of its outer skin. Sometimes the appetizer is served with black olives.

    Appetizer of whole peppers.
  9. If you like, add a little pepper or a pinch of dried aromatic herbs typical of the Balkans, such as savory or oregano.

    Chilled appetizer.
  10. Pepper salad is a wonderful appetizer, so serve it right away! When friends come over, I always make plenty of salad, and by the time the feast begins there is always time to grill a pork chop or other tasty meat dishes.

    Bulgarian salad
  11. You can add pieces of fresh sirene cheese, herbs and olives to the salad, arranging everything on a large platter without mixing, to make an assortment. A complex mushroom salad is made on the same principle: all the ingredients are laid out on a large dish and not mixed.
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Recipe facts
Yield:2 servings
Calories:23 kcal per 100 g
Prep:30 mins
Cook:30 mins
Total:60 mins
Category:Salads › Vegetable Salads
Cuisine:Bulgarian cuisine
Rating:
5 (1)
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