Macedonian Salad

On our recent visit to Bulgaria, we stopped at a Black Sea resort for lunch. Always when the weather is very hot, I tend to lose my appetite and live on salads, kyopoolu and tarator, so concentrated on the starters section of the menu. Here I spotted what was intriguingly called Macedonian salad and had to order it to find out what it is. As it turned out, it was roast and peeled green peppers in a garlic/dill marinade. Yummy!

Some googling later revealed that Macedonian salad is very similar to the Bulgarian Shopska salad or a Greek salad and not at all what I was served, however I decided to try and make it for our friends' Summer barbecue at the end of July.

Ingredients

1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
0.5 dl olive oil
0.5 dl balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
1 clove garlic
9 long peppers - any colour

Method

1. Make the dressing on the day before - mix together the dill, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and press in the garlic. Place in a glass jar in the fridge and give it a shake now and then.
2. Roast the peppers - ideally on a barbecue or pepper roaster or electric hob - then place in a saucepan and cover with a lid and leave to "stew" for a few minutes.
3. As soon as you're able to handle the peppers, peel off the skin and remove the stalks, seeds and pith, then rinse under hot water and cut up into bite-sized pieces.
4. Place in a serving bowl, pour over the dressing and stir through to mix. It's now ready to serve.

If you choose red, yellow or orange peppers, the end result will have some sweetness to it, if this isn't your thing, select green peppers. I'd chosen a mixture of red, yellow and orange, because the colours looked pretty, however after roasting, yellow and orange became indistinguishable. Still, it turned out to be quite a hit and several people asked me for the recipe. In fact, I thought it was nicer than the stuff I got at the restaurant.

There's a bit more work because of the roasting, but it makes a huge difference and it's a very good thing to do for a barbecue and start with the peppers before the other things, so that while meat and such are being grilled, the peppers get to stew in their saucepan. It's well worth doing, this salad tied in very nicely with the red meats.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo.