Traditional Bulgarian recipes

Recipe 1: Sunday banitsa

Products:

800 grams white 2 eggs 2 spoonfuls of vinegar 500 ml. Cool water 1 spoonful salt for the stuffing 400 grams cow cheese 4 eggs oil

70 grams butter for covering the banitsa

Recipe for banitsa • Beat the eggs, water, salt and vinegar • Sieve the flour and make a well in the middle, add small portions of the mixture and knead until the dough is soft. Split the dough into 6 balls and knead each of dough ball separately. Cover them well with oil and leave them at rest for 30 minutes on a floured table. • Take one ball and spread it well with the aid of a rolling pin, then place the spread dough on a cloth and keep spreading it further until you get a very thin almost transparent crust. Cut the edges, sprinkle with oil and stuffing (the eggs and cheese). With the help of the cloth underneath you have to roll the crust and the stuffing and place the roll in an oiled pan. You do this with all dough balls. • The ready banitsa should be sprinkled on top with the melted butter and baked at 200 degrees until ready. • When you take the banitsa out, if you think it is too oily for you, you can simply spill out the excess oil, sprinkle with water and cover the pan with a dry cloth.

Recipe 2: Cake with apples and walnuts

served with plums jam

Product 6 eggs 1 and 1/2 tea cup sugar 1 tea cup grinded walnuts 3 tea cups grinded apples 2 tea cups flour 1 pack of baking powder (10 grams) 2 spoonfuls of oil

served with powdered sugar

Recipe for the cake • The eggs are beaten together with the sugar • The sieved flour, the baking powder, the grinded apples and oil are added and then everything is mingled very well • Pour the mixture into a rectangular pan and bake till ready. • You can serve with plums jam or sprayed with powdered sugar

Recipe 3: Topenitsa with cheese and roasted peppers

Product

• Red peppers – 1 kg. • Cheese ‐ 350 grams • Olive oil or sunflower oil – 100 ml • ‐ 1 small head

• Salt • • ‐ 1 handful • Hot peppers ‐ 2 or more if you like it hotter

Making the topenitsa

Roast the peppers, peel them and clean them from the seeds. Cut them in small pieces. You can start by grinding the garlic with salt, then adding the peppers and oil and continuing the grinding until the mixture becomes like a mash. Then mix it with the grinded cheese, the rest of the oil and the seasoning. Topenitsa goes best on a piece of toasted bread. If you like the hot taste you can put hot peppers inside.

Recipe 4: Roasted, filled and fried peppers /Chushki byurek/ Ingredients: 1 kg roasted and peeled peppers 300‐400 gr. cheese 2 ‐ 3 eggs 1 spoonful of finely cut parsley flour for the batter oil for frying

The cheese is mixed well with one of the eggs and with the parsley. This mixture is stuffed into the peeled peppers, cleaned from all seeds.

The filled peppers are slightly pressed between the hands, then are put into the flour, then into the beaten eggs, then into the flour again, and into the eggs again. After this the peppers are fried till they become red.

Recipe 5: Cake we had in Sparta

Ingredients: 2 tea‐cups of sugar 4‐5 eggs (I would say 5) 2 soup spoonfuls yoghurt 2 and ½ tea‐cups of flour 1 cup of grinded walnuts 1 grinded apple 1 baking powder 2 small packs A pinch of 1 tea‐cup of oil

The eggs and sugar are beaten very finely. Then the oil is added and the beating is continued. Then we add half of the amount of flour and we stir. The baking powder is stirred together with the yoghurt (if you have some lemon juice – just 2 or 3 drops help for the cake to rise). This is then added to the common mixture and together with the rest of the flour everything is stirred very well. At the end we add the apple, the walnuts, the vanilla and 1/3 pack of cinnamon.

The cake is poured into a cake‐shape and is baked in a previously warmed oven at 180 degrees for 1 hour (do not open the door of the oven before this one hour is over – you can tell by the smell if the cake is ready)