SHOPSKA SALAD
/Mixed Vegetable Salad in the Shopp Style/
One of Shopps' great inventions is the Shopska Salad. In its ultimate form, it is pure white. As is also the Shopp costume. Shopska is like Shopps - pleasant and pungent.
May we say that it is an ancient invention and one of fundamental importance for civilization, although it is not mentioned in any encyclopaedia. Certainly, it is as important as the invention of the wheel and the use of fire. Shopska is beautiful, tasty, juicy, piquant, and flavoury. It is like Nature - indescribable. Nothing but this Salad must have led to the disclosure of dry distillation, after becoming crystal clear that such a fine relish needs a good and strong drink. So, Shopska is the authentic relish for brandy (Bulgarian Rakia). In turn, the grand Brandy drink (made of grapes, plums, damsons, apples, apricots, peaches, etc.) is the traditional Bulgarian aperitif.
Shopska is also an excellent dish for abstainers. It may be served as a single meal, as the first dish, together with the main dish, after meal, or just as a snack. You can offer it to your guests by way of welcome. You can serve it by way of goodbye.
To make Shopska Salad you need white cheese. Shopska would not be itself without cheese, and you will not be able to realize what we are talking about.
| Ingredients /4-5 portions/: | 300-350 g red tomatoes 1 fresh cucumber (about 200 g) 1 small hot pepper 150 g white cheese 2 onions 4-5 green peppers 10-15 olives a bunch of parsley vegetable oil (about 1/4 cupful) salt |
Directions:
Cut the onion in small pieces. Remove the stem and the seeds of the green peppers (raw or roasted and peeled). Cut them into stripes and then to smaller pieces. Chop the hot pepper. Cut the cucumber in four lengthways and slice the pieces. (You may leave it unpeeled if ecologically safe.) Mix everything, and add salt. Form a pile of the mixed products in a salad dish or in portion salad plates. Sprinkle with the vegetable oil. Grate the cheese over the salad to form of a "snow cap". Garnish with the olives and the parsley, to please your own taste. You may also sprinkle with vinegar.
| Ingredients: | 4 tomatoes 1 small cucumber 0.5 kg fleshy peppers 1 onion /or two spring onions/ 1 cupful of grated white cheese 5 hot peppers a small bunch of parsley a coffeecupful of vegetable oil salt |
Directions:
Wash and clean the vegetables. Remove the stem and the seeds of the peppers (raw or roasted and peeled). Slice them. Cut the tomatoes and the cucumber into small cubes. Chop the onion and the parsley. Mix everything, add salt and mix again. Shape the mixture into a "hemisphere" in the salad dish. Add the vegetable oil. Cover with an even layer of grated white cheese. You may put an olive, a tomato rose or several leaves of parsley on top of the salad. Add a hot pepper to each portion.
HOW TO PREPARE WHITE CHEESE
For the Shopska Salad (above) you will need white cheese. If you cannot find this kind of cheese to buy, you can create it yourself.
The white brined cheese is a concentrated milk food with varying taste and flavour, depending on its production technology. It has been home produced since ancient times. Its is served as an appetizer, or as an ingredient of many dishes of the Bulgarian cuisine. Here follows a recipe for the preparation of brined sheep cheese, which is a basic diet of the Bulgarian people. It can be consumed separately or in combination with other products.
| Ingredients |
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- Filter the milk. Warm it up to a temperature of 70o C for 10 minutes, not allowing it to boil and then cool it to 33-34o C. Add the rennet diluted by boiled and cooled water in a proportion of 1:10, stir well the milk and leave it at the same temperature for one hour to turn into cheese. The cheese thus produced should be drained in a cheese-cloth /gauze/ for 2 hours in order to remove the whey. The cheese obtained and drained should be placed in a strainer and pressed by weights for at least 6 hours. Then you can cut it into lumps and put them in a salting brine. It is made of 1 liter of water and 200 g of salt. The cheese should be steeped in the brine for not less than 24 hours, in order to become lightly salty in taste. Finally, arrange the cheese lumps in the utensils where they will be preserved and pour preservation brine /120 g of salt per 1 liter of water/ on it. The cheese will be ready for consumption in 60 days and during this time temperature in the room should measure about 10o C. Later you can store it in a refrigerator.
TARATOR SOUP
(summer soup)
This recipe is intended to serve four persons
Ingredients:
1 large cucumber, peeled, diced, salted and drained
7.2 dl yoghurt
7.2 dl iced water or mineral water
30 ml olive oil
85 gr walnuts, crushed
3 large cloves garlic, crushed with salt
Directions
Bulgaria is the home of the yoghourt culture bacillus bulgaricus, made with lamb glands. It has acquired legendary status as a means of longevity. Home-made yoghurt would suit this recipe, though if it is already thin, dilute it with less water than given above.
Combine all the ingredients in a blender and serve chilled.
HOW TO PREPARE YOGHOURT
If you want to have authentic Tarator, i'ts better to use authentic Yoghourt. The better way is to create it yourself.
As is known, the Bulgarian yoghourt is unique and familiar to customers all over the world. Moreover, the Bulgarian people produce also delicious white cheese, curds and other products of fresh milk. This time we are going to give you several recipes for preparing such products.Although milk is a drink, it contains 12.5 per cent of solid substance and more than 100 components. In one liter of cow milk there are 35 g of proteins, 46 g of sugar, as well as almost all kinds of microelements and vitamins. Besides being wholesome, fresh milk is very easily assimilated by human organism. Various milk products are made of milk - yoghourt, white cheese, cheese, cream, curds, butter, etc. - and they are widely used in the national Bulgarian cooking practice.
YOGHOURT
The Bulgarian sour milk is an original national product. Outside Bulgaria it is known by the name of “yoghourt”. It is supposed that the Bulgarian sour milk was connected with sheep-breeding, which can be traced back to Thracian times. Shepherds made a great variety of products using the large output of milk. It is believed that the best masters of yoghourt came from the Razgrad district. Yoghourt is obtained from full-cream milk after lacto-acidic fermentation at a temperature of 40-45o C. Depending on the type of milk used, the sour milk may be sheep, cow, buffalo, or mixed yoghourt. The greatest amount of fats is found in buffalo yoghourt - 7.5 per cent, followed by sheep yoghourt - 6.5 per cent and cow yoghourt - 3.6 per cent. Here follows a description of how you yourself can produce Bulgarian sour milk, fulfilling the recipe of the Razgrad masters:
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Directions:
Boil the milk and let it cool to 38-40o C (it should be a little warmer than your hand).
Pour 1/4 teacupful of it on the portion of sour milk required to start fermentation and mix well. Then add this mixture to the fresh milk. Stir well, cover the pot with a lid, wrap it with a woolen blanket and leave it in a warm premise. The temperature of 38-40o C should be maintained for three hours, while the sour milk fermentation develops.
The yoghourt thus obtained is kept in the refrigerator.
