Main course Fasting
Kompir mandža
Potatoes braised in onion and paprika — the plainest of the fasting dishes and the one most often cooked through Lent.
Recipe from Туѓино Јабано
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 45 min
- Total
- 1 hr
- Fasting
- Suitable
Ingredients 10 ingredients
Method
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into pieces of about 3 cm. Keep them in cold water while you prepare everything else so they do not discolour.
- Sweat the finely chopped onion in the oil over a medium heat until glassy, about eight minutes. Do not hurry it — all the sweetness of the dish is made here.
- Add the finely chopped pepper and the garlic and give them another two minutes.
- Take the pot off the heat and stir in the paprika. This is the one step that can spoil the whole dish: paprika dropped into hot oil turns bitter within seconds.
- Return to the heat, add the grated tomatoes and let them bubble for a minute or two, then add the drained potatoes and the bay leaf.
- Pour in hot water just to come up to the potatoes, season with salt and simmer covered for 30–35 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the sauce has thickened.
- Scatter over chopped parsley. Eat with bread and a hot pepper; it is usually better after half an hour's standing.
If you cannot find it
Substitutions that work outside Macedonia.
- Sweet paprika
- Sweet Hungarian paprika; for a deeper colour add a teaspoon of the smoked kind, but no more.
- Waxy potatoes
- Charlotte or a similar waxy variety; floury potatoes disintegrate into the sauce.
- Fresh tomatoes
- A tin of chopped tomatoes, drained of the thinnest of the juice.
