A Bulgarian Menu



International Recipes

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marga@lacabe.com



Bulgarian cuisine falls within both the Balkan culinary tradition, offering many dishes of Ottoman origin which have been adapted to the local temperament and modified by European influences. Bulgarians are particularly fond of fresh and seasonal food, they eat comparably little meat (lamb is a favorite in spring, chicken in summer and pork in winter) and tons of vegetables. Vegetable main dishes abound and include stews, bakes and, of course, stuffed vegetables. Bulgaria's gift to the world has been its yoghurt, which is said to be thick and creamy and even better than Greek yoghurt. Alas, I couldn't find any locally. I was quite impressed by the food I cooked, and by how delicious many of the recipes I didn't cook sounded. This is certainly a cuisine to come back and explore some more.

Traditional Bulgarian appetizers include sausages, fried vegetables and dips and spreads, so I decided to make it easy on myself by serving an array of them that I found at my local pan-European market. The "Ikra" eggplant spread and the "peppetizer" roasted pepper stpread, both Zergut brand, were both quite tasty. I think they would work well added to sandwiches as well. Mike really enjoyed the kashkaval cheese, a semi-hard yellow cheese which, and we all went crazy for the sudjuk, a spicy Bulgarian beef sausage. Truth be told, I'm not sure if the sudjuk we had was Bulgarian. It was made in the US and it was halal, so it might have been Bosnian instead. In any case, it was quite good.

Bulgarian Food Links