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Recipe: Shopska Salad
One of the dishes that was pretty much ubiquitous when we visited Bulgaria, and could be found pretty much every meal we had, was shopska salad. It is Bulgaria’s national salad, apparently created as part of tourism campaign in the 1950s, its colours of red, green and white match those of the Bulgarian flag.
The dish is popular throughout the Balkans – we also enjoyed it in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it made a regular appearance on menus in Croatia as well. There are all sorts of variations. Fruit and vegetables in Eastern Europe are usually more delicious than those we get at home. They make look uglier but they taste so much better. Because the salad uses very finely grated cheese you get a lovely hit of salty cheese with every forkful as opposed to, say, a Greek salad which uses cubes of cheese. It’s a really easy recipe that tastes absolutely great. This version is the one that we ate in Bulgaria.
Shopska is traditionally made using Bulgarian sirene cheese which is difficult to get in the UK. Feta cheese is more easily available and is a really good substitute. Here’s our recipe for shopska salad.
Shopska Salad Ingredients
1 cucumber
4 tomatoes
1 cup of feta cheese (we like the barrel aged variety as it has a lovely rich, salty flavour)
1 tbs red wine vinegar (white wine or cider vinegar can also be used)
2 tbs sunflower oil (sunflower is more traditional but it is fine to use olive oil if you prefer)
Pinch of salt (go easy) and pepper (as much as you like)
Method
Many recipes recommend removing the seeds from the tomatoes and cucumber but we hate food waste so we tend to leave them in.
Wash the cucumber and chop into cubes
Wash the tomatoes, cut out the stem and cut into small cubes.
Make the dressing: combine the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper – we recommend minimal salt as the cheese is salty; often we omit the salt altogether. Mix together and then pour over the cucumber and tomatoes. Let them marinate for a few hours if you wish.
Finely grate the cheese. If you have an ordinary grater that’s absolutely fine but if you can, use a grater with a really fine setting. Feta is quite soft, so isn’t the easiest cheese to grate but it is worth persevering to get a lovely fine mass of cheese.
Place the marinated vegetables in a bowl. Sprinkle over the grated cheese. Devour.
Variations. It is perfectly fine to add in other vegetables: finely chopped red onion, chopped celery, red or green bell peppers etc. If you want to add some herbs such as parsley or basil, that’s okay too.
- RECIPE: How to Make Costa Rica’s Gallo Pinto
- Recipe: Japanese Simmered Pork Belly – Buta no Kakuni
- RECIPE: How to Make Umeboshi
- Recipe: Shopska Salad
- RECIPE: Salmorejo
- RECIPE: Japanese Fried Chicken Karaage
- RECIPE: How To Make Wild Garlic Pesto
- RECIPE: How to Make Stinging Nettle Hummus
- RECIPE: How To Make Kimchi
RECIPE: How To Make Moo Larb
Moo Larb is the perfect dish for a hot summer’s day. It’s incredibly easy to make and really refreshing. It’s kind of a meat salad which hails from South East Asia; we first tried it in Lao , where it holds the status of national dish, but we have also eaten it in Thailand, and quickly became hooked. Even better, all the ingredients are really easy to find in our home country. There’s a tiny bit of preparation needed prior to assembling the dish, so worth thinking about making it ahead of time. The following recipe will feed four as a starter or two hungry people.
INGREDIENTS
300g pork mince. (The ‘moo’ of moo larb is pork.) Chicken mince also works really well and quorn mince or mushrooms can provides a vegetarian alternative. Lamb isn’t recommended as it’s quite fatty and the fat tends to congeal a little when it cools, which doesn’t provide a very nice texture.
1 large red onion (or 2 small)
Generous handful of fresh mint
Generous handful of fresh coriander
Freshly milled black pepper
1 or 2 juicy limes
Generous splash of fish sauce (vegetarians can use veggie fish sauce or a combination of soy sauce with a dash of vinegar) – around half a tablespoon
Optional: chilli flakes, toasted rice, teaspoon of sugar, Thai basil leaves for garnish
METHOD
You need to allow enough time for the mince to cook and cool before assembling the dish. It’s the perfect ‘make in advance’ dish.
Cook the mince. Pour a little oil into a pan and fry until the meat is cooked through. Allow it to cool.
Finely chop the onion, coriander and mint and add to the mince.
Add the fish sauce, lime juice and black pepper to taste. We really like coarsely ground black pepper so grind ours in a pestle and mortar. This is really where you can adapt the flavour to your personal taste.
Mix well. It’s fine to make in advance and let the flavours infuse.
Serve with steamed rice and a salad garnish.
VARIATIONS
One of the lovely things about this dish is that you really can adjust it to your taste. There are some variations. If you like heat, add chilli flakes (flakes are better than fresh chilli). This was one of the dishes we tasted in Lao that wasn’t searingly hot, the spice coming from the pepper rather than chilli, but it’s fine to add more heat if you like it. If you’d like to add some sweetness, sprinkle in a little sugar and mix in.
There is also an important and popular variation where you can add roasted ground rice powder for an additional nutty complexity to the flavour and texture. It’s very simple: place a handful of uncooked Thai rice in a dry frying pan and roast the rice for 10 minutes or so, moving about in the pan until the rice is brown. Then transfer to a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder and grind to a powder.
(You can actually toast more rice to make a greater quantity of this powder; it will keep for a couple of months in an airtight container.)
- RECIPE: How to Make Costa Rica’s Gallo Pinto
- Recipe: Japanese Simmered Pork Belly – Buta no Kakuni
- RECIPE: How to Make Umeboshi
- Recipe: Shopska Salad
- RECIPE: Salmorejo
- RECIPE: Japanese Fried Chicken Karaage
- RECIPE: How To Make Wild Garlic Pesto
- RECIPE: How to Make Stinging Nettle Hummus
- RECIPE: How To Make Kimchi
