Shopska Salad – The Bulgarian national salad

Shopska salad, the Bulgarian national salad, if there can be such a thing, uses all the colors of the Bulgarian flag in its primary ingredients: green cucumbers, red tomatoes and white sirene (сирене), or Bulgarian feta cheese. Other ingredients may include onion, peppers (both sweet and hot), and olives. Typical seasonings are salt, pepper, fresh parsley, sunflower oil and vinegar. My version contains all these except olives but feel free to add any kind of olives you like to your shopska salad (kalamata would be very tasty and very authentic).

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The prep is everything

Shopska salata (Шопска салата) is a salad, so the cleaning, cutting and tossing of vegetables is the whole recipe–no cooking involved. I’ve read the salad was developed by the national tourism bureau in honor of the Bulgarian flag or maybe it gained popularity as a national dish because of the colors in an existing dish. My Bulgarian cookbook alleges that “some people say” the salad is the result of restaurants using up their vegetable scraps of fresh cucumbers, raw peppers and ripe tomatoes. Regardless of its origin, the Shopska salad is found throughout Bulgaria and the Balkans. When you visit Bulgaria, I guarantee you will see Shopska salata on menus.

You will require nothing exotic to make a wholly authentic Shopska salad; if you cannot find imported Bulgarian sirene any Greek or American feta cheese will do. As we discovered in the post about banitsa, Bulgarian feta comes in three varieties (sheeps milk, goats milk and cows milk). Use any type you like for this recipe. You have other choices as well: red bell peppers or green bell peppers; roasted peppers or raw peppers; hot peppers or no hot peppers; or no peppers at all!

Chop chop

Begin by washing all your vegetables. For the cucumber you can choose to leave the peel or remove it. I left the peel for color and crunch. If you use an English seedless cucumber you and just slice it and chop it up into half inch dice; if you are using a cucumber with seeds, you may want to remove the seeds before dicing. Removing cucumber seeds is easy. Next, slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and then each half again lengthwise. You now have four long quarters. Run your knife under the seed bed and slice down the length of the quarter and discard the triangular shaped strip of seeds.

Slice each quarter piece of cucumber in half again lengthwise, creating 8 pieces. Cut across these pieces at half-inch intervals to dice. Put the diced cucumbers in a large bowl. Cut the ends off the tomatoes and cut into half-inch diced pieces. Remove seeds (optional) and put int he bowl with the cucumber.

Cut the pepper in half and discard the seeds and ribs. Then slice the pepper into strips and then cross cut in to half-inch pieces. Add to the bowl.

Next, peel and chop the red onion into quarter-inch pieces. Add the diced onion to the bowl.

Seasoning the Shopska salad – the Bulgarian national salad

For the dressing, combine one tablespoon of red wine vinegar (or any vinegar of your choice) with two tablespoons of sunflower oil. While sunflower oil is traditional, you can use olive oil or any other mild salad oil. Add two tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley to the bowl and toss with the dressing. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Remember that sirene/feta is salty so use a light touch with the salt.

Finally, grate about one half cup of Bulgarian sirene onto salad. Divide into serving portions and garnish with fresh parsley. Alternatively you may dish up the portions and grate the cheese over each one separately for a prettier presentation.

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