Bulgaria

I must be honest, when we heard our country was Bulgaria I instantly thought that the food would be a bit average, imaging it to be lots of boiled veggies and stews. I was pleasantly surprised.

Soups – both hot and cold – are a common start to a meal in Bulgaria, but we weren’t in the mood for a soup, so chose a simple recipe for Stuffed Peppers. We elaborated on the recipe quite a bit. We used red capsicum rather than green, and used a combination of cheeses (feta, mozzarella and haloumi) and mixed in a bit of chopped tomato. We also baked it in the oven. We served it on a piece of crusty bread with a drizzle of olive oil – delicious. In fact, Raoul went as far as saying it was possibly one of his favourite entrees of all our cook ups. I think the salty feta coupled with the sweet capsicum is a great marriage of flavours.

Stuffed Peppers

The main meal hero dish was a popular Bulgarian dish called Kavarma – a pork and leek casserole. Pork is the most common meat eaten in Bulgaria. We served the Kavarma with rice and two traditional salads – shopska salad and a lovely zesty potato salad. Apparently salads almost always accompany every Bulgarian meal. I really enjoyed the flavours and different textures of this combination of dishes and the lovely range of veggies.

Kavarma

Kavarma with shopska and potato salad

Dessert was a tasty honey and walnut baked apple, with a tiny piece of hokum (turkish delight) and halva on the side. You can’t go wrong with a decent baked apple!

Honey and walnut baked apple

Next time we go to Wales with Katherine and Raoul.

– Alicia