Spicy Fried Hot Pepper Appetizer with Garlic | Bulgarian Style
A long time ago, back in the last century, we were vacationing with friends in sunny Bulgaria and stopped for dinner at a new little restaurant nearby. As in all good places, we were welcomed with an open heart, treated to homemade rakia, and offered a spicy appetizer of hot peppers.
As is customary, a good dinner starts with a glass of chilled rakia. Or even two glasses. With appetizers.
Still, we were shown very clearly that it could be otherwise. The perfectly right and delicious spicy appetizer is fried hot peppers, often marinated after frying with garlic, wine vinegar and herbs. The uninitiated may at first think it is too hot for a stomach used to Olivier salad. But experience shows that this lasts only the first 2 minutes. It is tasty after all, even very tasty. A glass of cold (not ice-cold!) rakia and a hot fried pepper in marinade. You will become a fan, of the appetizer, I mean, not of what everyone thought.
In Bulgaria, pepper is mostly associated with the “Bulgarian pepper”, the mild variety of bell pepper, a very widespread crop.
Either way, this superb appetizer of pepper pods is ready in 15 minutes. And you can get started. Hot pepper stirs the appetite and does the job of preparing the body for the main course one hundred percent!
More with chili
Chili Peppers in OilHot chili peppers and whole garlic cloves slowly poached in olive oil with rosemary and bay leaf: a spicy appetizer plus a fragrant oil for cooking and sauces.
Hot Pepper Appetizer with Garlic and DillHot pepper appetizer with garlic and dill: fried chili peppers stuffed with a fragrant garlic paste and marinated in white wine and wine vinegar.
Padron Peppers – Fried Spanish AppetizerPadron peppers fried in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt – a classic Galician appetizer ready in 10 minutes. Step-by-step recipe with photos.
Pickled Hot PeppersWhole red hot peppers pickled Caucasian-style with garlic, cilantro, dill, mint and spices in a grape vinegar marinade. An easy preserve for winter.
No-Cook Hot Pepper SauceFresh hot pepper sauce in 10 minutes, no cooking: a mix of chili and bell peppers blended with white onion, garlic, cilantro and lime. Great with meat and tacos.Ingredients
4 servings
- Hot pepper (green) 8
- Wine vinegar 3 tbsp
- Garlic 4-6 cloves
- Dry white wine 50 ml
- Olive oil 3 tbsp
- Parsley 2-3 sprigs
- Salt to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Pepper is believed to originate from the tropical regions of America, where many of its varieties grow. The number of varieties cultivated around the world is simply huge. Some are not hot at all, and some could melt glass (just kidding). In Italy, for example, hot peppers are called peperoni, a hot pod pepper. And, as I understood, everything spicy there is called peperoni: sausage, salami, pizza. For our appetizer it is best to take curved green pods of hot pepper and use them whole, unpeeled.
- Heat the olive oil in a frying pan until very hot. Wash the peppers and prick each one lightly with the tip of a knife. This keeps the steam pressure from bursting the pods while frying. Be sure to dry the pods of any remaining water.
- Place the hot peppers in the pan and fry. Turn them from time to time so they brown evenly. When the peppers are fried, you can keep them covered over low heat for a little while. You can also grill them, brushing them with oil first. Whichever you prefer.
- Peel and chop the garlic. Chop the parsley very finely. Mix the garlic and parsley and add salt. Pour in the oil left in the pan after frying the peppers and stir. Add the wine vinegar and white wine. You should get a marinade.
- Pour the marinade over the fried peppers, making sure it covers the pods completely.
- Now you have options.
- The fastest: once the peppers have cooled, the spicy appetizer is ready and you can dig in.
- A better way is to refrigerate them for a day. The peppers will have time to marinate and soak up the flavor of the marinade. A perfectly right spicy appetizer.
- The advanced way: put the fried peppers into a jar and refrigerate. The longer they sit, the tastier the appetizer gets. But that takes willpower. It is hard.
- So do not put it off. This spicy appetizer is worth it!
Pull chopper for garlic and onionAliExpress
Oil sprayerAliExpress
Kitchen scale up to 5 kgAliExpress
Vegetable chopper with handleAliExpress
Measuring cups and spoonsAliExpress
Peeler with wooden handleAliExpress| Yield: | 4 servings |
| Calories: | 56 kcal per 100 g |
| Prep: | 5 mins |
| Cook: | 10 mins |
| Total: | 15 mins |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |