Ajvar
Ajvar or
ayvar is a type of relish, made principally from red bell peppers, with garlic. It may also contain
eggplant and
chili peppers. Ajvar originates in the Serbian cuisine, and was therefore long known as "Serbian salad" or "Serbian vegetable caviar". It became a popular salad throughout Yugoslavia after World War II and is nowadays popular in the Balkans.
Original homemade ajvar is made of roasted peppers, while some industrial producers use cooked peppers, which leads to a lower quality. Depending on the capsaicin content in bell peppers and the amount of added chili peppers, it can be sweet (traditional), piquant (the most common), or very hot.
The ajvar can be consumed as a bread spread or as a side dish.
Preparation
Original homemade ajvar is made of roasted peppers, while some industrial producers use cooked peppers, which leads to a lower quality of ajvar.
The preparation of ajvar is somewhat difficult, as it involves a great amount of manual labour, especially as regards the peeling of the roasted peppers.
Traditionally, it is prepared in mid-autumn, when bell peppers are most abundant, conserved in glass jars, and consumed throughout the year (although in most households stocks do not last until the spring, when fresh salads start to emerge anyway, so it is usually enjoyed as a winter food). Often, the whole family or neighbours gather to bake the bell peppers, peel them, and cook them. The principal cultivar of pepper used is called roga, i.e. horned it is large, red, horn-shaped, with thick flesh and relatively easy to peel. It typically ripens in late September.
In order to produce ajvar, bell peppers and aubergines (eggplants) are roasted whole on a plate on an open fire, a plate of wood in a stove, or in an oven. The baked peppers must briefly rest in a closed dish, to allow them to cool and to allow the flesh to separate from the skin. Next, the skin is carefully peeled off and seeds removed. The peppers are then ground in a mill or chopped in tiny pieces (this variant is often referred to as pindjur). Finally, the mush is stewed for a couple of hours in large pots, with added sunflower oil and garlic, in order to condense and reduce the water, as well as to enhance later conservation. Salt (and sometimes also vinegar) is added at the end and the hot mush is poured directly into glass jars which are immediately sealed.
