Starter Fasting
Ajvar
A slow-cooked roasted red pepper relish that families make together each autumn and jar for the winter.
Recipe from Туѓино Јабано
- Prep
- 2 hr
- Cook
- 2 hr 10 min
- Total
- 4 hr 10 min
- Fasting
- Suitable
Ingredients 7 ingredients
Method
- Heat the oven to 240°C, or light a barbecue. Roast the peppers, and the aubergine if you are using it, turning them until the skins are blackened and blistered all over, 30 to 40 minutes.
- Pile the hot peppers into a deep bowl, cover with a plate and leave for 20 minutes. The trapped steam lifts the skin away from the flesh and saves a great deal of scraping.
- Peel the peppers, pull out the stalks and seeds, and scoop the aubergine flesh from its skin. Tip everything into a colander and leave to drain for at least an hour, or overnight somewhere cool. Watery peppers make thin ajvar.
- Mince the drained flesh coarsely, through a mincer or in short pulses in a processor. Do not reduce it to a purée; ajvar should keep a little texture.
- Cook the mince in a wide heavy pan over a medium heat for about an hour, stirring often and scraping the base. It will darken and stop looking wet.
- Pour in the oil in a thin stream, stirring all the while, and cook for another 30 minutes until the ajvar is glossy and a spoon drawn across the base leaves a track that closes slowly.
- Stir in the salt, sugar and vinegar, taste, and adjust. Spoon it boiling hot into sterilised jars and seal them at once.
If you cannot find it
Substitutions that work outside Macedonia.
- Kurtovska kapija peppers
- long red romano or ramiro peppers; ordinary bell peppers give a thinner, less sweet ajvar
- Hot Bukovska paprika
- a mild Hungarian hot paprika, or a pinch of dried chilli flakes
- Small Balkan aubergine
- one ordinary large aubergine, the flesh scooped out of the skin
