Bulgarian Marinated Peppers with Garlic and Parsley
As the saying goes, drinking is an everyday thing, but the appetizer is a celebration! An appetizer (hors d'œuvre or entrée in French cuisine) is food served before the soup or main course, usually light and appetizing, or, as is customary, a light meal of its own with an aperitif.
Every cuisine in the world has a huge choice of cold and hot appetizers, even where alcohol is strictly forbidden. Appetizers are made from all the same foods as other dishes: vegetables, meat and fish, poultry, mushrooms, everything goes.
The appetizers we're more used to are sauerkraut for the stomach, pickled or fermented cucumbers for the mood, fermented tomatoes for pleasure, all sorts of marinated vegetables, red caviar, black caviar, and “overseas” eggplant caviar. And sprats!
In Bulgaria I really liked the appetizers, or rather homemade preserves, made from all kinds of vegetables. There's the world-famous lecso: bell peppers, tomatoes and onion, plus all sorts of “national” additions.
In Bulgaria you'll often come across a freshly made appetizer of long peppers (sweet or hot) with garlic. This pepper appetizer is very quick to make. It gets eaten even quicker, though.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Long sweet peppers 5-6
- Garlic 3-4 cloves
- Olive oil 3 tbsp
- Parsley 5-6 sprigs
- Wine vinegar 1 tbsp
- Spices: salt, black pepper to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Purely for looks, I recommend long sweet peppers. That said, the taste won't change much if you use ordinary pale green bell peppers or large blocky ones. Naturally, if you use hot peppers, the taste will be “somewhat” different. In Bulgaria, for example, we sometimes eat green hot peppers made this way, when the mood strikes, with rakia.
- Wash the peppers, cut off the stems and remove all the seeds. Try not to damage the pepper itself. By the way, the seeds fly right out if you tap the pepper.
- Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Fry the peppers in the oil.
- The peppers should be lightly browned on all sides.
- Then turn the heat down to the lowest setting and cover the pan. Cook the peppers for 20 minutes, turning them often. They should soften and lose a good part of their moisture. Basically, once the peppers have “flattened” and browned, they're ready for the next step.
- Pick all the leaves off the parsley sprigs and discard the stems. Peel the garlic.
- Next, chop the parsley and garlic any way you like: with a knife, a blender or in a mortar. By the way, don't chop them too fine.
- Season the garlic and parsley mixture with salt and ground black pepper. Add 1 tbsp wine vinegar. Mix well. Then pour in the oil left in the pan after frying the peppers.
- Layer the fried peppers in a container, drizzling each layer with the tangy garlic, parsley and oil dressing. Leave the peppers to marinate until completely cool. Chilling them is even better. Then this appetizer of marinated bell peppers, or sweet peppers, will be perfect.
- And now, without delay, dig in…
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 27 |
| Prep: | 10 mins |
| Cook: | 20 mins |
| Total: | 30 mins |
| Category: | Snacks and Sauces |
| Cuisine: | Bulgarian cuisine |
| Rating: |
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4.3
(6)
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