Ajvar is popular Balkan dish which is used as a spread or a side dish. Ajvar is made of peppers, eggplants, pepperoni and garlic. It’s preparation requires time, but it is definitely worth of effort.
This was second time in my life that I decided to prepare it and it took two days.
Measurements are in kilograms and liters and you can adjust them in same ratio.
Ingredients:
10 kg of large, red horn-shaped peppers
3 kg of eggplants
Few hot pepperoni
2-3 garlic clove
Few tablespoons of salt
0,2 L vinegar
0,3 L vegetable oil
First day I grilled all the peppers and eggplants. It took some time. You must bake them whole, without slicing them.
You can bake them in oven, too. After they cooled down a bit, I removed seeds from peppers and I peeled of skin from both peppers and eggplants. Then I placed all vegetables in few big colanders so that all fluids extract. I left them overnight like that.
Next morning, I took fine meat grinder and grind all vegetable in smooth mash. You can use blender or food processor. I also grind garlic and pepperoni together with peppers and eggplants.
Then you need really big pot and wooden spoon, and about two hours of your time to stand by the stove and slowly stir mixture. I added little oil in pot before adding mashed vegetable. On about half way til it’s done, I added salt, vinegar, oil and then try it every 10 minutes (cool it before trying) to see if it needs more salt or pepperoni.
It is done when you draw a line on bottom of pot with a spoon, and it stays like that. I poured my homemade ajvar in sterilized jars and closed them firmly.
From this amount of vegetables I got about ten glass jars of ajvar.
We like our ajvar hot and spicy and we like to eat it mostly with grilled meat, but also as a spread on toasted bread.
Hope you liked it too…
