Bell Peppers Stuffed with Cheese

Baking the peppers

1. For stuffing with cheese, it is better to take red bell peppers, purely for aesthetic reasons. White brynza, green dill and red pepper make a lovely combination of colors, much like a caprese salad. You need small, fully ripe red peppers with elongated fruit and pointed tips.

2. Wash the peppers.

   

3. Remove the seeds and stems, taking care not to damage the pepper itself. Otherwise the filling will spill out during cooking.

4. Put the cleaned peppers in a plastic bag and tie it loosely, not airtight.

5. Microwave the bag on full power for 8-10 minutes. By then the peppers will be soft and the outer skin, which looks like a film, will start to come away.

6. Let the peppers cool to room temperature in the same bag without untying it.

   

Brynza filling

1. Good Bulgarian brynza and similar cheeses, such as feta, are easy to find. Besides cheese-stuffed peppers, brynza is great in salads such as shopska salad and shepherd’s salad. Feta, a Greek cheese similar to brynza, is much softer, and Greek salad (horiatiki) is impossible without it.

2. Pick the leaves off the dill sprigs and chop them with a knife as finely as you can. Set a little dill aside for the marinade.

   

3. Peel the garlic and chop it with a knife too, setting one clove aside for the marinade. Do not grate it, as it releases a lot of garlic juice.

4. Mash the brynza with a fork or grate it on a fine grater.

5. Mix the cheese with the finely chopped dill and garlic.

   If the brynza is a little dry, you can make an exception and add 1 tbsp of cream, sour cream or a bit of melted butter to the mixture. Usually, though, fresh brynza is very soft and needs no such additions.

6. Taste the mixture and only then add salt if needed: brynza is already quite salty.

7. Season with ground black pepper, add 0.5 tsp of dried savory, ground to a powder, and stir.

   If you can, use a traditional Bulgarian blend that contains savory instead of plain savory. Such blends are usually known as sharena sol or trapezna chubritsa. Add all the spices to your own taste, but the spicy flavor and aroma are what set these cheese-stuffed peppers apart from similar appetizers.

   

Stuffing and frying

1. Without removing the outer skin, stuff each prepared, baked pepper with about 1 tbsp of the brynza mixture.

2. Flatten the peppers slightly. Simply put, squash them down a little.

   

3. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan, add the peppers and fry over medium heat on both sides for a few minutes, until lightly browned.

   

4. Transfer the fried peppers to a ceramic or glass dish.

   

Marinade and serving

1. Make a light marinade: mix 1 tsp of wine or balsamic vinegar and 50 ml of white wine.

2. Finely chop the reserved dill and the garlic clove into the marinade. Add a little salt and stir.

3. Pour the herb marinade over the peppers and let them cool completely.

   

4. Ideally, put the appetizer in the fridge for a few hours.

   Still, cheese-stuffed peppers with herbs and garlic are an excellent appetizer even slightly warm, especially served on a piece of fresh wheat bread. It is almost a treat.

   

5. Put the finished peppers on a plate and serve with an aperitif. By the way, cheese-stuffed peppers with a piece of fresh bread are delicious with tomato juice.