Shopska salad

The shopska salad is the most consumed salad in Bulgaria. It is kind of "meal N1" on the Bulgarian tables. It should be consumed fresh immediately after preparing and should not be left to rest. Use as fresh ingredients as possible (freshly picked up from the garden are the best).

0,5 kg of good tomatoes (*if the tomatoes are not good take a look at the note after the receipt)
1 big cucumber
1 big green + 1 big red pepper of the long and thick Balkan type (paprika). The traditional Balkan paprika has only two flatter sides on which it can lay, unlike the genetic dutch colorful monsters with a 'cubic' shape.
1 white onion (you can use red, yellow, white or young onion according to your taste)
25 gr of green parsley - ONLY the leaves
50 gr of white Balkan cheese
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt (natural sea-salt is best, sold in DM) - be careful with the salt, if the cheese is salty you may not need to add any additional salt !!!

Wash the vegetables. Switch your cook to Medium or higher strength and place the two paprikas directly on it. Grill until the outer skin becomes black, then turn the paprikas on the other side and wait until the skin gets black. When ready switch the cook off and put the two paprikas aside wrapped in a plastic bag. They need to rest and soften while working the other vegetables.

Cut the tomatoes in pieces which should neither be too small nor too big and put them in a bowl. Peel the cucumber (if homegrown do not peel it), cut it in four along the length - you should get 4 long cucumber "sticks". Then cut the 4 cucumber sticks into 'quarter-circle' pieces roughly 0.5 - 1 cm thick. Add them to the tomatoes in the bowl. Cut/chop the onion into small pieces and add it; cut the parsley leaves and add them. Take the grilled paprikas out of the plastic bag, peel their outer semi-transparent thin (now black) skin off, remove the seeds, chop the cleaned paprikas into small pieces and add to the other vegetables in the bowl. Add the extra virgin oil, and in case the white cheese is not salty enough, add some salt and stir well. Cover with the crushed white cheese (the smaller the pieces - the better) and serve fresh.


* In case you do not find any good tomatoes, you may wanna rub the knife blade with garlic before cutting the tomatoes with it. This trick dramatically improves the taste of the "plastic" tomatoes sold in Central and Northern Europe.