Thick sauce recipe based on baked sweet pepper Aivar is a bright representative of the Balkan cuisine. It will be indispensable if you treat your friends with sliced ​​unsalted cheese or fried fatty fish. Hot sauce can simply be spread on bread during lunch, such sandwiches are especially good in tandem with fish soup and pea soup. Aivar is an excellent “topping” for cutlets, shish kebabs, casseroles.
The charming property of the sauce is the presence of a seductive persistent aroma of sweet pepper. To give the sauce bright colors, you need to take sweet peppers of bright orange, yellow or red. Tomatoes will need very thick-skinned and fleshy, others simply will not withstand baking, turning into a burnt peel and leaked juice.
A longitudinal incision is made on the pepper, the juice formed inside is carefully poured into the pan. Together with the stalk, the seed part is taken out. The pepper is placed on the board, with a slight sliding movement of the knife, the peel is pulled together. The pulp freed from the shell is thrown into the pan.
To obtain a high-quality product, only ripe and healthy vegetables are needed.
Before you start cooking ajvar, you need to sort out the raw materials, removing vegetables with signs of spoilage or rot. It is advisable to choose large specimens of peppers with thick walls, a smooth, shiny and smooth surface. Among the tomatoes, select ripe fleshy varieties, preferably red ones. Hot chili peppers come in handy both dried and raw.
Onions can be included in ajvar, but not red, because it is milder and is most often consumed in salads. We recommend using spring garlic, ajvar with it is much more aromatic and vigorous.
The most popular addition to the sauce can be called eggplant, followed by an apple. And, of course, bay leaf, coriander, suneli hops and many, many more spices and seasonings, including salt and sugar.
Aivar is made freshly prepared or stored for the winter. Regardless of the purpose, the ajvar recipe requires mandatory heat treatment. The highlight of the recipe is the initial baking of peppers in the oven and further stewing of the mixture of all ingredients in one container until cooked.