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Shopska Salad

Name: Shopska Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Bulgarian
Ingredients: 500 g Ripe tomatoes; 300 g Cucumber; 150 g Red bell pepper; 80 g Onion; 150 g Sirene (Bulgarian brined white cheese); 15 g Flat-leaf parsley; 40 ml Extra-virgin olive oil; 15 ml White wine vinegar; 5 g Fine sea salt

Tomato, cucumber, pepper and onion under a drift of grated white cheese. Fifteen minutes, no cooking, and it stands or falls entirely on the tomatoes.

Prep: 15 min
Cook: 0 min
Difficulty: Very easy

About this dish

Shopska salad is younger than it looks: it was designed in the 1960s by Balkantourist, the Bulgarian state tourism agency, as a dish to put in front of visitors — and the colours are not a coincidence, being those of the national flag. That it was invented by a committee has not stopped it becoming the thing Bulgarians actually eat all summer, nor made it any less good. The cheese goes on top and is not mixed in; that is the whole difference between this and every other chopped salad in the region.

Vegetarian
Gluten-free
Not vegan because of Sirene (Bulgarian brined white cheese)
Contains dairy because of Sirene (Bulgarian brined white cheese)

Ingredients

4servings

500gRipe tomatoes
300gCucumber
150gRed bell pepper
80gOnion
150gSirene (Bulgarian brined white cheese)
15gFlat-leaf parsley
40mlExtra-virgin olive oil
15mlWhite wine vinegar
5gFine sea salt

Instructions

Cut the tomatoes into rough 2 cm chunks and the cucumber into half-moons. Put them in a wide bowl.
6 min
Tip: Chunks, not dice. A salad of tiny cubes leaks its juice into the bottom of the bowl within minutes, and that juice is half of what you came for.
Slice the pepper into rings or strips and the onion as thinly as you can manage. Add both.
4 min
Tip: If the onion is fierce, rinse the slices under cold water and pat them dry. Nothing is lost and the salad stops being about onion.
Dress with the oil, vinegar and salt and turn everything over gently.
2 min
Tip: Salt now rather than at the table: it draws out just enough tomato juice to meet the oil and vinegar, and that emulsion is the dressing. Salt at the table cannot do this.
Grate the sirene over the top in a thick, even layer that covers the salad completely.
3 min
Tip: Over the top, never stirred through. Mixed in it dissolves into the dressing and turns everything cloudy; sitting on top it stays distinct and you get cheese in some mouthfuls and not others, which is the point.
Scatter with the parsley and serve at once.
1 min
Tip: This salad does not keep even an hour. Once salted, the vegetables begin to collapse — make it when people are already at the table.