Roasted Vegetable Salad with Brynza

Roasting the vegetables

1. When you plan to roast vegetables for a good salad, it is important to take the best quality ones. It can happen that after roasting, eggplants or peppers turn out spoiled inside. It is best to take small cylindrical eggplants whose seeds have not yet formed, and a young zucchini, which is almost all flesh with no seeds yet. Choose fleshy peppers. By the way, for the hot pepper pick a large green one, which is easier to roast.

   

2. Roast the eggplants, sweet and hot peppers, and zucchini. The simplest and quickest way is to brush the vegetables with a little vegetable oil and bake them in an oven heated to 200°C.

   You can also roast vegetables in the embers of a grill: thread them on a skewer and cook, turning from time to time. At home I use an electric “chushkopek” oven that I brought from Bulgaria.

   Roast them not until fully cooked but until soft: pierce a vegetable with the tip of a knife, and if there is no significant resistance, it is done. The surface may char slightly; that is normal, and the skin comes off more easily later.

   

3. Let the roasted vegetables cool until you can comfortably handle them.

Peeling and cutting

1. Peel the vegetables carefully. With a sharp knife, separate the eggplant skin and remove it. Cut away any spoiled spots. Zucchini also peels easily. The outer skin of peppers is very thin and after roasting comes off by itself with a light touch. Also remove the seeds from the sweet and hot peppers.

   

2. Cut the roasted eggplants crosswise into rounds 1-1.5 cm thick. Cut the zucchini the same way. It is better to trim off the ends and not use them in the salad.

3. Cut the hot pepper into rings or strips, as you like. The sweet pepper is better cut into long strips about 1 cm wide.

4. Peel the onion and cut it into rings. Put all the cut vegetables in a bowl.

   

Dressing and serving

1. Pull the leaves off the basil sprigs and chop them roughly with a knife. Keep one sprig for garnish.

2. Grate the garlic finely or chop it with a knife.

3. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and add them to the bowl with the roasted vegetables, together with the basil and garlic.

4. Salt the salad and add 2-3 pinches of dried oregano.

5. Sprinkle the vegetables with 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar and toss. Dress the salad with olive oil and toss once more.

6. Cut the brynza or feta into cubes.

7. Put the salad mixture on a plate. Sprinkle with the cubes of brynza and garnish with a sprig of basil. Don’t chill the salad, or you will lose the wonderful aroma of the roasted vegetables. That is probably the most important feature of this appetizer. Serve the salad only at room temperature.

   

   You can use other vegetables if you like:

   • for roasting: pattypan squash, zucchini, even potatoes, which makes the salad more filling;
   • besides basil: parsley, cilantro and so on;
   • among the raw vegetables: cucumbers;
   • a salad with multicolored tomatoes looks especially striking.