It took me a week to write this post. I’m a total red paprika fan, didn’t even realize it will take so long to write…
I just realized that summer is soon to be over. On Friday I went to the farmer’s market and bought 15kg (cca 30lbs) of red paprika. Today I grilled them for the winter preserves I’ll be making. Oh the smell of sweet paprikas on the fire… That beautiful smell of summer’s end…
Ever since I was a kid, the smell of ajvar and red cooked or grilled paprika has been sinonimous with the summer’s end. It’s that time of the year when we all here start preparing for the winter to come. And as soon as you start smelling the roasting of the paprikas around your neigbourhood, you know the autumn is here. Soon the weather will be more rainy. The wineyards will turn yellow. And parks and forest will be filled with various colours of autumn. The green part of the year is over…
And today, while roasting my paprika’s I remembered my childhood and me “helping” my grandma roast the paprikas and eggplants for ajvar in her basement. One thing I particullary liked about our home made ajvar is the fact that we ALWAYS roasted the peppers on the wooden stove or grill. The flavour they then developed was AMAIZING. And then when you mix them with grilled or roasted eggplants, it simply captures that grill scent. And when you open it during the winter, it’s like a little summer warmth comes right up. This is completely missing in the ajvar you make from cooked paprika or even if you roast them in the oven. The grilled one is my favourite.
What’s ajvar? Ajvar is a staple garnish of south europe cuisine. It’s one of the most popular sides for barbecue or any meat dish. We usually eat it in winter months with roasted or cooked meat, or on a piece of bread with butter. And over the summer months with the barbecue. Now, every family has it’s own version. The purists even make ajvar with paprikas only. no garlic, no eggplants, no anything else. Just paprikas. Our family recipe consists of paprikas and eggplants grilled over fire or wooden stove. This is considered a usual list of ingredients, and most of the ajvar’s have eggplants in some amount. Then some people put in garlic. Some roast the garlic,others cook the garlic with paprikas when finishing the ajvar, and some even put fresh garlic in already cooked ajvar. I really don’t like this version. But the tasted differ 🙂 . You are invited to make your own version of ajvar.
P.S. there’s also a “summer” version of ajvar where you put the cooked or baked onoins in the mix and only cook ajvar for a short period. This one cannot last long and you have to keep it in the fridge.
Red Paprika Ajvar
In order to make ajvar according to my family you will need:
10 kg (20lb) red paprikas (pointy ones not bell peppers)
1kg eggplant
2 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp vinegar
oil
Grill the paprikas and eggplant on the grill or wooden stove untill they are charred. The more you char them the easier they are to peel.
Put the grilled paprikas and eggplants in a dish and cover. Let them cool and then peel their skin and remove the seeds. I like to remove the seeds from eggplants. It’s easy to do when they are completely grilled.
Grind the veggies on the meat grinder. You can use the blender, but you shouldn’t blend them in a paste. Unless you prefer it that way.
Put the grind veggies into a big bowl and put the bowl on the stove. Then add the salt and vinegar and cook untill it thickens according to your taste (takes around half to full hour). Add 2 Tbsp of oil and mix in. Then pour the hot ajvar into sterilized hot jars, and cover with oil. Put the lids on and pausterize them in the owen or the stove. If you put them in owen, bake them for half an hour and then turn the owen off and let them cool completely while inside the owen.
You can also put the owen to low temp (100 deg Celsius) and bake the jars without oil for hafl an hour. Then when the crust forms put the oil and lids and turn the owen off and keep the jars in untill the owen is cooled.
Salad
What I also did with the rest of the paprikas I made paprika salad for winter. Again one of our favourites. You can simply clean the grilled paprikas and the bag them and put them in freezer. Then when you’d like the salad simply thaw them, put a bit of oil, salt and vinegar and finelly diced garlic, and perfect winter salad is done…
This year I added the rest of paprikas to jars, Filled them with simple brine and added one clove or garlic to each. I’ll see how it turns out. But most likely I’ll resort to freeze method.
End of rant
That’s it for my paprika medley. A bit of mish mash of recipes and thoughts. I hope you don’t mind. Soon the calender autumn will be here. I hope you enjoyed your summer and will now enjoy the autumn and winter to come.
Cheers 🙂
p.s. If you don’t have any jars. These are nice: