Bulgaria cuisine. Bulgarian cuisine - its features, recipes for cooking traditional national dishes with photos. Traditional Bulgarian cuisine: snacks

Acquaintance with Bulgaria is not only the study of history and. It is also an immersion in the national cuisine, the dishes of which are famous for the variety and richness of tastes. For many tourists, it is the local treats that leave the most vivid impressions of the rest.

National characteristics

In fact, the national cuisine of Bulgaria related to the South Slavic but strong enough on her influenced by Turkish and Greek motives... This is due to the historical background, as well as the similarities in geography and initial products. But, in addition, the traditions of Armenia, Georgia and even Italy found their response, therefore the Bulgarian culinary art can be considered an individual direction.

The local cuisine is delicious and satisfying. It contains a lot of meat, vegetables, herbs and spices.... All this is cooked only over low heat, even with the simplest recipe. Ready meals have a pleasant aroma and taste, shaded by herbs and spices.

The menu is very varied. With the onset of summer, old potatoes disappear from the tables and are replaced by rice, pasta, and seasonal vegetables. Tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants, onions, garlic are actively served. They add sheep and goat cheese, olive and sunflower oil, fruits, nuts, seafood.

Vegetable dishes

Bulgaria is a vegetable country, therefore only the freshest products are used in cooking. Very popular stuffed vegetables: eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini... Mushrooms, cheeses, cottage cheese, onions, minced meat are taken as a filling for them. Interesting cooking stuffed peppers or locally - Chushka byurek... The filling for it is feta cheese, egg, garlic, finely chopped greens. The peppers themselves are stuffed, then breaded and fried. The result is an amazing dish that has nothing to do with its Russian counterpart.

Overview of cafes and restaurants in Nessebar

A truly national dish can be called Shopska salad... It contains tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, baked or fresh bell peppers, lettuce, parsley - all covered with a grated cheese bedspread. Sheep salad has the same basic ingredients, but add ham, mushrooms and an egg to them. Salads are seasoned with olive oil and wine vinegar - the finished dish becomes more tasty and healthy.

The Bulgarian menu also includes cabbage rolls called sarmi, which are prepared from grape and cabbage leaves. They are wrapped in pieces of spiced marinated pork or lamb and served with fresh vegetable salad, cheese platters and wine.

Dairy products

Fermented milk products occupy a special place in Bulgaria, they have no analogues in the whole world. The reason for this bulgarian lactobacillus- the only strain of lactobacilli of plant origin that does not take root in other regions of the planet. Bulgarian stick not only gives food an incomparable taste, but also has the property of prolonging life. The main lactic acid product is yogurt or jelly mlyako, which is often used in cooking.

Sour milk is used to prepare salads, soups and drinks. The most famous - Millechna Salad consisting of cucumbers, walnuts, dill and garlic. No less tasty soup Tarator- summer light soup, which has a composition similar to Milk salad, only more varied. Dishes based on yoghurt are easy to prepare, fresh and unique in taste.

Cheese is added to almost every dish on the Bulgarian menu, most often cheese or, in Bulgarian, a siren. It is put fresh or fried, baked, stuffed with vegetables, pancakes (butchers) and much more. Bulgarian cheeses go well with almost all basic products, but the most famous cheese dish is Kashkaval Pane... Kashkaval is a mature yellow cheese that is breaded and fried in vegetable oil until crisp.

Fish and seafood

Bulgaria is a maritime country and Nessebar is a seaside town. Therefore, seafood dishes are widespread here, always freshly caught, deliciously prepared and offered at fairly low prices.

In Nessebar there are a number of restaurants specializing in the "sea" menu. Crabs, octopus, shrimps, shark fillets and other seafood are prepared according to the most original recipes. For example, mussels are offered fried and boiled. They are mixed with rice and get a kind of pilaf, or they are cooked in a shell with Roquefort sauce. All this is accompanied by a glass of fine wine and excellent service.

Fish dishes are beyond criticism. The fish is baked whole on scars, fried, stewed with vegetables or cooked in pots. Very popular in restaurants shark fillet... It is fried in breadcrumbs and served with potatoes flavored with fresh herbs. A famous fish dish is plakia, which is made from fish fillets stewed with onions, garlic, tomatoes and, of course, cheese. It turns out very appetizing, tasty and satisfying.

Scara

For cooking, Bulgarians traditionally use special oven with grate, called scara. This is a kind of "grill" with a tray on which you can cook everything: meat, fish, vegetables and even bake bread. The food is juicy and aromatic. Any good restaurant or, more correctly, mehana, prefers this culinary tool.

Many tourists are tempted to purchase a scarf. For a hostess, this is a simple and functional thing that costs little money - from 2 to 30 leva. You can bake whole fish on skara, cook shish (shashlik) or kebapche (small sausages made from minced meat). Kebapche in Bulgaria it is considered one of the most popular dishes, which is served in almost all restaurants.

Gyuvech

In fact, gyuvech is fireproof clay pots with lids used in the preparation of dishes of the same name. The recipe is based on meat with the addition of all kinds of vegetables and seasonings. Kavarma is very popular. Ideally, it should be made from lamb, but in Bulgarian restaurants they prefer to cook it from pork with the addition of onions, peppers, herbs and dry white wine.

Vegetarian recipes for dishes in pots are also common, for example, shop-style feta cheese. For its preparation, take slices of Bulgarian feta cheese, tomatoes cut into rings and 1-2 pods of hot pepper. The dish is served in a pot, into which a chicken egg is driven in shortly before taking it out of the oven.

Sach

Sach is a frying pan made of unbaked clay, having a stand with handles and legs for serving... The pan is placed on coals or on an open fire, and sac dishes of meat, fish and vegetables are prepared in it. In Bulgaria, pork or chicken sac is usually served, but there are also recipes for cooking with three types of meat or no meat at all.

Vegetables include mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, onions, garlic, bell peppers, tomatoes. Potatoes are usually not added, but there are quite a few recipes, so there may be deviations from tradition. The ready-made sach is served on the table in the same dish, as they say "with heat, with heat", where it will sour for a long time and remain warm.

Being on vacation in Bulgaria for the first time, tourists ask themselves the question: what is the Bulgarian national cuisine and what should you definitely try?
The Bulgarian national cuisine has been forming for centuries. Food processing methods, seasonings and technologies used in cooking are a mixture of European and Asian cuisines.

Features of the national Bulgarian cuisine

Bulgarian salads and snacks

Is a national Bulgarian dish that is on the menu of any restaurant or cafe in Bulgaria. The composition of this salad includes: baked peppers, fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, parsley. The salad is seasoned with vegetable oil, the vegetables are sprinkled with abundant grated cheese on top, or cut into cubes. Optionally, you can ask to add hot pepper.

Snejanka salad Is a very light and low-calorie salad. It consists of finely chopped cucumbers, walnuts, dill and garlic, dressed with yoghurt (in Bulgarian - "jelly blanched"). Snezhanka salad refers to cold salads, it is served after holding it in the refrigerator.

Snejanka salad

Kashkaval pane Is a classic Bulgarian dish. It is a breaded hard cheese. The peculiarity of this dish is a special type of cheese produced in Bulgaria, which does not melt when heated. Kashkaval Pan is often offered with sweet jam.

Kashkaval pane

Bulgarian national cuisine soups

Tarator- this is not easy soup, it is business card Bulgarian national cuisine. The ingredients for its preparation are: Bulgarian yogurt (jelly mlyako), chopped walnuts, finely chopped cucumbers, always a mixture of dill with garlic and a spoonful of olive oil. A tarator is a cold soup that does not need to be boiled quickly.

Traditional dish of Bulgarian cuisine - cold soup Tarator

Second courses of the Bulgarian national cuisine

Moussaka- This national Bulgarian meal resembles a Russian casserole, the main products for its preparation are potatoes cut into small cubes and minced meat, but in addition to them, various vegetables are used: tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants. Before cooking, the musaka is poured with a special gravy made from eggs and milk with the addition of toasted flour. There are options for moussaka without potatoes with other vegetables such as eggplant and tomatoes, or with pasta.

Gyuvech- the national Bulgarian food, which is prepared in special earthen vessels (pots) called gyuvech. This dish is a vegetable platter with the addition of finely chopped meat, most often pork, chicken or beef. Gyuvech can also be vegetarian. In some restaurants of St. Vlas, rice is added to its composition.

Imambayaldy

Imambayaldy Is an eggplant stuffed with vegetables, cooked in the oven or oven. Tomatoes, bell peppers, garlic, herbs, onions are used for stuffing.

Under a strange name kyopoolu hides a wonderful appetizer of baked eggplant, pepper and tomato, seasoned with garlic, parsley and vegetable oil.

Traditional appetizer - Eggplant baked in Bulgarian style

Sirene in Shopski - Bulgarian national cuisine

Shop Siren- This national Bulgarian dish is prepared in clay pots. All ingredients are laid out in layers: feta cheese, tomatoes, bell peppers, herbs, eggs. The dish can be prepared with or without hot pepper, it is important to pay attention to this.

Must-haves to try from the Bulgarian national cuisine

Each mehana and restaurant of St. Vlas offers its own specialty. It is difficult to mention all the dishes in one article.

what definitely need to try in Bulgaria, of course

Sach is both an earthen pan and the name of a traditional Bulgarian national dish. Meat cooked with vegetables or mushrooms on sachet, believe me, will leave an unforgettable experience. The dish is always served in a hot frying pan. Sach can be meat or vegetarian, it all depends on the recipe of the chef and your preference.

Chushka burek- Bulgarian baked peppers, peeled from seeds and skin, stuffed with a mixture of feta cheese, cottage cheese, herbs and eggs, fried in breading until golden brown. Parsley, garlic and ground black pepper can be added to the filling. A properly prepared chushka burek has a flattened shape and a thin breading.
Banitsa Is a flour product made from thinly rolled unleavened dough with various fillings. The dough should be as thin as parchment. Each layer of dough is filled with filling, most often it is hard cheese or feta cheese. Banitsa are also offered with other types of fillings: nuts, herbs, vegetables, fruits, honey, etc.

Menu in restaurants of St. Vlas

In, the menu is everywhere written in 3 languages ​​(Bulgarian, Russian, English), not always correctly, but there will be no problems with understanding what to order. To make it easier to navigate, below is a translation of the main Bulgarian words from the menu:

• eggplant - patlant;
• Bulgarian pepper - ingots;
• zucchini - tikvichki;
• tomatoes - domati;
• cheese - kashkaval;
• feta cheese - siren;
• pork - piggy meso;
• chicken meat - saw;
• veal - telescope;
• lamb meat - agneshko;
• thick soup - chorba;
• cutlets - kyuftet;
• short sausages - kebapchet.

Bulgarian national cuisine - Menu in one of the restaurants

Bulgarian national cuisine - cooking methods

• Scara is usually a dish cooked on the grill. But a scara is also a frying pan;
• Purzheno - fried;
• Liver - baked;
• Strangled - stewed
• Vareni - boiled.

Bulgarian national cuisine.

The national cuisine of Bulgaria was formed under the influence of both Orthodox Christian and Muslim traditions. Bulgaria was part of the Byzantine Empire, and later fell under the Turkish yoke.
Bulgaria is rightfully called the country of vegetables. There is so much here: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, white cabbage and cauliflower, spices! All vegetables are served in any form - raw, boiled, fried, cooked on skara, stewed, pickled. Bulgarian chefs pride themselves on their ability to cook stuffed vegetables.

Bulgarian cuisine is rich in various meat and vegetable dishes.

Salad is where any meal begins. A truly national dish of the Bulgarians is (bulg. "salad shop"). The salad consists of a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, baked sweet peppers, herbs, onions, feta cheese and can be found on almost every menu. There is also a sour-milk and cucumber salad called Snezhanka. Just yummy.

Also very popular are cold and hot snacks made from sausages (lukanka, elder), dried (shepherd, fillet) and stew, fried entrails and mushrooms.

Soups ( chorba) a lot, in each village they are prepared in its own way. The leader is the peasant bean soup, to which boiled-smoked sausages or fried meatballs (kyufte) are added.

Festive soup is considered "shkembe-chorba"- a delicious stew of veal entrails (stomach) fried in oil, into which chopped dried hot red pepper with grains and a mixture of grape vinegar and garlic are added before use.

Real Bulgaria is a cold soup "tarator". It is usually prepared from crushed walnuts and chopped fresh cucumbers with the addition of finely chopped or crushed garlic, fresh dill and seasoned with sour milk ("jelly mlyako"). "Kisele mlyako" in Bulgaria has nothing to do with our sour milk. This is a very tasty and healthy dairy product. The tarator really helps in the morning if you took a good walk the day before and consumed a significant amount of Bulgarian brandy or mastic.

Stuffed peppers

Suha Kawarma

Among the abundance of vegetables, meat and poultry occupy a special place in Bulgarian cuisine. Bulgarians prefer stewed meat, or fried on a spit or grill over hot coals (on skara).

Meat dishes are varied in every possible way. "Kebapchi", or "kebapchet", - are very similar to izvestnoelyulya-kebab, but with Bulgarian spices and longer in shape. A kind of delicious meat sausage made from beef, pork or lamb. "Shishcheta"- according to ours shashlik, small kebabs from chicken, pork, lamb, grilled (for scara).

The meat is often accompanied by vegetables and is served in clay pots. There are three popular varieties: "gyuvech"- stew with potatoes, various vegetables, tomatoes, garlic, "kavarma"- meat with onions, bell peppers, with the addition of red wine, baked in the oven in clay pots "gyuvecheta", an egg is broken on top of an almost finished dish and baked until cooked, - potato casserole with minced meat and vegetables or with cow or sheep feta cheese ...

There are also "sach"- fried meat baked in the oven in a special Bulgarian frying pan, which is called a sac. There are various recipes for sachey, including when the meat is cooked with various vegetables, tomatoes, mushrooms. Traditionally, the sach is placed directly on the coals in the oven and served on the table “hot, hot”.

Also extremely popular "plakia"- stewed fish with vegetables, "sarmi"- stuffed cabbage rolls from pork, beef or lamb in cabbage or grape leaves, "plneni pigs"- stuffed with paprika with meat and rice, poured over with a sauce similar to bechamel.

About brynza (bulg. "siren") is worth mentioning separately. She is extremely popular in Bulgaria. It is eaten as an appetizer for wines, as a component of many meat and vegetable dishes, pastries and even omelets. Bryndza with white bread and green capsicum is rightfully considered the national dish of the Bulgarians, like the British, for example, - sandwiches or puddings.

The pride of Bulgarian cuisine is yoghurt. It was invented here, and it is made in every village in its own way. Together with feta cheese and vegetables, it forms the basis of a Bulgarian breakfast.

Cheese in Bulgaria (bulg. "kashkaval") are divided into cow, sheep and goat. With cheese and feta cheese (bulg. "siren") popular puff pastries are baked "banitsa" or "banichka" - a favorite dish of the Bulgarians just for a snack. By the way, they should be washed down with ayran. Ayran in Bulgaria is a very tasty and healthy fermented milk drink that perfectly quenches thirst. It has nothing to do with our tan - ayran.

There are a lot of fruits in Bulgaria, in summer they are very cheap.

Bulgarians cannot imagine their life without coffee. They drink it from morning until late at night. The most popular cooking method is espresso, as well as Turkish brew.

In Bulgaria, you will always find a rich selection of sweets: oriental (tulumba, baklava, etc.), Viennese pastries and cakes. Take your time to order just ice cream, order melba is an ice cream with fresh fruit, whipped cream, nuts and syrup.