Shopska Salata

Bulgaria's summer salad of tomato, cucumber and pepper under a heavy fall of grated white cheese, in the colours of the national flag

Origin: Sofia, the Shopluk & Bulgaria

From the journey of Tomato.

Shopska salata is four raw vegetables and a great deal of cheese, and its construction is fixed: tomato, cucumber, and roasted or raw sweet pepper cut into rough chunks, raw onion, a little parsley, oil and vinegar, and then a thick blanket of coarsely grated sirene laid over the whole thing so the vegetables underneath are barely visible. The cheese is not tossed through; it goes on top, and the salad is mixed at the table. Its origin is more recent and more deliberate than most national dishes and is worth stating plainly. The salad is generally credited to Balkantourist, the Bulgarian state tourism enterprise, which developed a set of regional dishes for foreign visitors in the 1950s and 1960s, and the red, white, and green of the finished plate matching the Bulgarian flag is usually described as intentional. The components are all genuinely local and the Shopi of the region around Sofia are a real people with a real cuisine; what was invented was the assembly and the name. That does not make it less Bulgarian, and the country has taken it entirely to heart. It is the standard opening of a meal, it is what rakia is drunk with, and the pairing is close to obligatory: the salad is eaten slowly whilst the rakia is drunk, before anything cooked arrives. What carries it is the tomato. Bulgaria's tomatoes, grown on the Thracian plain and along the Danube, were a serious export through the twentieth century and are still what Bulgarians name first when asked what their country grows well. A shopska made with a poor tomato has nothing to hide behind, which is the standard test of any four-ingredient salad.

Ingredients

Salad

600 g ripe tomatoes, in rough 2cm chunks
1 large cucumber, peeled and in rough chunks
2 long sweet peppers, roasted and peeled, or raw, in strips
1 small onion, finely sliced
1 handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Dressing

4 tbsp sunflower or olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt, or to taste

To finish

200 g sirene or a firm white brined cheese, coarsely grated

To serve

4 measures of rakia, to serve

Method

Cut the tomatoes into rough chunks rather than neat wedges. This is a chunky salad and the irregular faces hold the dressing.
Peel the cucumber, which Bulgarians do as a matter of course, and cut it to the same size as the tomato.
If roasting the peppers, char them whole over a flame until blackened, steam them in a covered bowl for ten minutes, then peel and tear them into strips. Raw is also standard and gives a crisper salad.
Combine the tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion, and parsley in a wide shallow bowl.
Dress with the oil, vinegar, and salt and turn everything through gently.
Let it stand for five minutes so the salt draws a little juice out of the tomato, which becomes part of the dressing.
Now grate the cheese coarsely and lay it over the top in an even blanket, thick enough that the vegetables are mostly hidden.
Do not toss the cheese through. It goes on top and is mixed in at the table by each person, and a shopska served pre-mixed is not quite the thing.
Serve at once, at room temperature rather than chilled, with rakia and bread.
The juice left in the bottom of the bowl is the best part and is mopped up with bread rather than left.

Notes

This is a four-ingredient salad and it rests entirely on the tomato, so make it only when tomatoes are worth eating. Room temperature rather than refrigerator-cold, which flattens both the tomato and the cheese. Grate the sirene coarsely on the largest holes; finely grated it turns pasty. Feta is the usual substitute and is saltier and firmer, so use a little less and taste before adding the salt to the dressing. The peppers may be raw or roasted and Bulgarians make both, roasted being sweeter and more usual in restaurants.

The Gastrographer

Name: Shopska Salata
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: the Shopluk & Bulgaria
Ingredients: 600 g ripe tomatoes, in rough 2cm chunks; 1 large cucumber, peeled and in rough chunks; 2 long sweet peppers, roasted and peeled, or raw, in strips; 1 small onion, finely sliced; 1 handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 4 tbsp sunflower or olive oil; 2 tbsp red wine vinegar; 1 tsp salt, or to taste; 200 g sirene or a firm white brined cheese, coarsely grated; 4 measures of rakia, to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control