Is there anything that brings us together more than food? No matter what country or city you are in, we can all connect over a good home cooked meal. Nicholas Blandford, a teacher at O.O.Y. Slavejko Arsov in Stip, Macedonia, shares one of the countries great recipes with us- Ajvar! Ajvar is made from bell peppers, can contain eggplant, garlic and chili peppers and is traditionally used as a condiment. While pretty simple, this recipe is extremely delicious! You’ll need the following ingredients:
2kg of red bell peppers
1kg of eggplant
Olive Oil
Chili peppers
- On a metal plate over a wood stove, blacken red bell peppers, then set aside in plastic bags. Tie the bags and let cool.
- Either skin eggplants and boil them or blacken them like the peppers. If blackened, place in plastic bag and let cool.
- Peel skin off of red bell peppers (and eggplant if blackened) and remove seeds.
- Place peppers and eggplants in a grinder, and grind down into a paste. Add in olive oil and chili peppers to taste.
- In a large pot, heat and stir mixture until it has the consistency of a marinara sauce. This will usually be a few hours in the batches they make it in here in Macedonia.
Enjoy!