Ajvar - The great Macedonian winter food (Ajvar chronicles, part X)

And, with this contribution, we have arrived to the final episode of the Ajvar Chronicles. Exactly two weeks after the big Ajvar Day itself. All of the stages in the recipe are described and pictured in the blog entries of the last two weeks. The only thing that might be missing is a better view of the paprikas needed to make up 60 kilo of them. And, of course, to get a better picture of what ajvar is about, a handy description of the recipe won't hurt as well.

However you may like to look and description of the ajvar, it is by far best experienced if you come and eat it yourself. The ajvar appears to be available in the country all year round. Though, the main season for eating ajvar seems to be October - March.

The lot.


The recipe.

Enjoy the food!

P.S. Found out that the name 'ajvar' has become a registered trademark. It is like having 'chicken curry' or 'sushi' registered. The latter being virtually impossible, the 'ajvar' case was simply granted. The best part is that it's not in Macedonian hands. No, it's Slovenian. As a result, when you see the jars of ajvar in shops, you'll see it being labelled as 'ajver'. In Macedonian it looks like this: 'ајвер' instead of 'ајвар'.

Clean 'em up (Ajvar Chronicles, part IX)

This part is explained quite easily as the title of this blog entry pretty much says it all: get all the paprikas and eggplants clean! Apart from sand you'd rather not want to have in your ajvar, it's also important to cut out the bad parts of the paprikas before you get them roasted. That's it! Now, let's have a look at some photos from this stage.

Cleaning of paprika before they're getting roasted.

Extra cleaning and drying of paprikas before they're off to the grill.

Quality control of the paprikas. Making ajvar appears to be a delicate process. If bad paprikas are put on the grill, allegedly the ajvar will be of poor quality. Hence the importance of maintenance of quality control.

Wish I was there (bypassing the ajvar II)

There are a few moments that I wish I wasn't in Skopje. With a visit to Stobi and Shtip coming up for some historical sightseeing and pastrmalija eating, a 26 degrees hot sun shining on our face and a really beautiful house to call our own for the upcoming 17 months from tomorrow, life's not bad at all in Macedonia. But tonight... the place to be is EIBERGEN!

Here's why! The setlist of one of the big new bands from 2006:

KRAKATU
Rock over Eibergen.
Rock on Skopje.
Give 'em all you've got!*
*= freely after Wesley Willes

Get 'em hot!!! (Ajvar Chronicles, part VIII)

After the careful selection, cleaning and quality control of the paprikas (the same gos for the eggplant of course), it's time to get the heat up! Put some fire in the stove and roast the paprikas. What happens when paprikas are roasted, is somewhat a secret to me. There's truely a change in taste and also the skin is losening up on its attachment to the rest of the vegetable. Sometimes it also sounds like little explosions occur inside the paprika. But what is going on exactly...? I really can't tell.

The paprikas are constantly turned until you find all the skin coming loose. It doesn't matter if the skin gets a little black. It'll be only the skin that will be disposed of in the next phase: the peel session.

While tossing and turning those hot paprikas I found out that something gets sticky to your fingers. Is there a sugar-creation going on during the roasting?

Poking up the fire after adding some fuel to the grill

Closer look at the roasting of paprikas

Continuous turning of the paprika - the hotter the fire, the quicker the roasting goes.

Somehow, we got to add the eggplant on the grill after all the 60 kilos of paprika had been roasted.
The grill gets pretty hot. After some time of turning and grilling the paprikas, the shins can get extremely hot. In order to protect them, some modern technology is deployed.

Peel session (Ajvar chronicles, part VII)

It's time to get really messy. Never mind that manicure you did yesterday. In fact, it's time to destroy all of that beautiful work done to your hands and nails. In other words: Let's get dirty. It's time to peel, peel and peel some more.
Before we get to work, let's have a look at the set up of the peel session. What do you need in a professional ajvar peeling environment?

1. The roasted paprikas and eggplant;
2. A comfortable working place and...
3. TIME!

Time can be available in limited quatities, it is wise to have a few buddies around to help you out in this process of peeling and cleaning of the vegetables. It is definately recommended to get mor hands on deck as the level of perceived comfort increases dramatically with every person added to the work-force. The working place is preferably set up outside your house. 60 kilos of paprikas peeled and cleaned from seeds, definately leaves a lot of mess behind if it's not mastered right. In our case, we sat just outside the house in the sun and chatted away the peel session while getting our hands dirty.

All the paprikas are picked from steamy hot bags, releived from their shin, opened up, cleaned from seeds and collected. That's very much the main idea. And still, it takes quite some hours. In any case, our hours spent on this were funny.
The hot roasted paprikas are put in closed bags. There they are letting off steam... and peel. The skin of the paprika gets of the paprika a lot easier if the paprikas stay in closed hot steamy bags for a while.

Close up of the 'letting off steam' part in ajvar making.

The peel session - try to keep the hands, fingers and nails clean. You won't.

What's left behind after the peel sessions are over.

Cleaned roasted paprika - a delicacy in its own.

Some of the main ingredients during the peeling sessions: the pan with the collected peeled and cleaned paprikas, the box with peeled skins and seeds, a bag with still warm roasted paprikas to be peeled and some bowls of water to keep hands and paprika clean.

Grinding (Ajvar Chronicles, part VI)

Once the roasted paprikas and eggplants are relieved of their skins (and in case of the paprikas also their seeds), it's time to meet their master. They're ground into pulp that will turn into the great ajvar only a few hours later. In general, the grinding is done by hand. This means that some people (or in the worst case scenario 'one' person) turn the grinding mill - processing 60 kilo of roasted, peeled and cleaned paprika/eggplant. Our friends found something innovative to this mind and hand numbing activity - drill technology. With this machine attached to the grinding mill the job was done in less than half an hour. A piece of cake.

The whole lot, or better yet, part of the whole lot that needs grinding.



The 14 kilos of eggplant gets the same treatment as the paprika. Again, the same tools are used to speed up this process considerably if compared with the good old hand work.

Add to the stirring (Ajvar Chronicles, part V)

Welcome back to the Ajvar Chronicles. In this is part I explain about the experiences gained during the making of ajvar on last 15 October and will focus on what is put in the mash while it is cooking and being stirred constantly.

When the grilled and ground paprika/eggplant mash is cooking for some hours, a few good hands full of salt is added to the lot. Of course, the stirring doesn't stop.

More or less halfway the process of stirred cooking more or less two liters of hot oil is added to the mash.

At times the ajvar is tasted to see if there's enough salt or oil in it. The tricky part is if a dutchman is asked his opinion during this essential judging of the product in process. It's especially tricky as the dutchman in the picture [1] is labeling all the tasted food as 'brilliant' and [2] has never made ajvar before in his entire life.

Funny signs and notices in Skopje (part 1)

As everywhere you are outside your own country, you'll likely bump into a few signs, notices or just an occasion where you have to think at least twice to understand what's meant there. For San and me, it's no difference in Macedonia. Here are a few examples that we made photos of today.


Macedonians write in cyrillic - which is phonetic. As most languages, Macedonian imported some words which are originally alien to the mother tongue. This shop's black/white sign is one of them. This sign is probably very common and normal for those who are brought up with the language and its writing. For foreigners like me, who are learning it, this is kind of an A-Ha Erlebnis to figure out. This is how it usually goes:
1. spell what's written;
2. say it out loud;
3. let it make sense to you.

Here you see ДРАГСТОР, where Д=D, Р=R, А=A, Г=G, С=S, Т=T, and О=O.

Translations to the english language can be challenging at times. Here's what's on offer in one of Skopje's fine restaurants (this was also mentioned in the Friday the 13th blog entry from last week).

Getting into one of Skopje's hotel by elevator, you will encounter this interesting feature in the left top corner the "elevator's dashboard": the PANIC sign. I'd like to know where this came from.

Thank you Paulão for the idea - I hope you get your large collection of funny signs up one day.

A little side step from the Ajvar Chronicles - Look around on Macedonia Square

It's been one week since the ajvar session finished. There's still enough material for the Ajvar Chronicles. But not for today. We've got something else for you. A first glance of Skopje on Juul's Place in motion picture. Here's a small look around on Macedonia Square from yesterday.

The big stir

As with all of the steps in the making of ajvar, time is a considerable and necessary feature in the process. In almost all of these steps time can be shortened considerably when more hands are on deck. However, there is one phase in which time can't be beaten. This phase is known as 'the big stir'. And this is what it looks like.

15:33 hrs - Stir the whole lot of ground paprika and eggplant and it's time to move on to the next step - the one where the most patience is required - the cooked stirring or stirred cooking.

16:10 hrs... the ajvar starts to cook. The stirring continues.
The ajvaris about to get ready. It's cooking and... takes a few more hours of cherisment. A necessary ingredient during the hours of stirring is fire wood. Plenty of it!
And the stirring goes on and on and on and on (freely after S. Harris, 1984)
19:17 hrs - after four hours of cooking and constant stirring, the mass of ground paprika and eggplant is reduced to half. It's almost ready to be called ajvar. Just a few more moments of patience is involved.

Fill 'em up

Welcome to part three of the Ajvar Chronicles. For those of you who missed the previous episodes of this backwards telling of the ajvar series, I'll start with a brief explanation what's going on here at the moment.

Last Sunday San and I were invited to have a look at what a typically Macedonian day of ajvar making is all about. We figured that the 'look at' part in the invitation should be replaced by 'work on a typically Macedonian day of ajvar making'. And so it went. Between all the washing, grilling, peeling, grinding and cooking I found some time to get a few of the essential moments on photo. These are supposed to liven up the bits and pieces of text. Today you can read about the 2nd but last stage of the process - filling the jars with hot ajvar. As the days follow, I will finish all untill step 1 of the ajvar recipe.

At 19:17 hrs, after almost five hours of stirring, it was time to get the big pan off the fire and get the pre-heated jars out. 60 kilos of processed paprika and 14 kilos of eggplant have officially been transferred into ajvar.
Before you pour in the hot ajvar in the jars, it's wise to have the jars heated up. If not, you shouldn't be surprised to see the jar break down of the heat difference.
Filling the jars with delicious ajvar. At 19:17 hrs it was time to get the big pan off the fire and get the pre-heated jars out. 60 kilos of processed paprika and 14 kilos of eggplant have officially been transferred into ajvar.
Jar of ajvar ready to be covered, boxed and stored away.

The greatest of all cleaning

All the jars are filled. Only a few traces of the still very warm ajvar are found in the pan. It's time to clean it. And honestly, this is the best part of the whole day. Together with bread and the white cheese (sirenje), the pan is ready to be stored for the next time when its duties of ajvar-making are due.

Making ajvar

Last Sunday, we were invited to hop in on a sesh of ajvar making. I won't go into too much details right now, but the essential things to know about ajvar are:

• it's one of Macedonians typical food
• it's one of the 1001 ways to process paprika
• it's extremely tasty when made correctly
• it's a hell of a job to make if you're 'only with 2 persons'

We were with 8 people and still were busy for 9 (nine!) hours before we could call it quits. The idea for the upcoming days is to inform you by putting a little piece of the whole process online. Complete with photos. Today, the first photo: the boxed ajvar.
Look forward to see how this proceeds the following days.

Friday the 13th

It’s Friday the 13^th. No idea if Skopje is ready for this. If they are, the next question is if we are ready for this. We’ll see.

[Update] At the end of the day, all appears to have passed well on our behalf. It's a little different for:

1. The animal who lost her only coat on Bit Bazar (it's very fresh and wet hide was processed into a leather strip on the very spot it was probably... go figure);
   
2. The person who ate CRAP SALAD under the fish food section in the menu of the very popular Tito like place in the center of town;
3. All of us in need of the only emergency exit in the TCC Plaza Spa & Fitness center (before you get to the one and only emergency exit door, you have to Tarzan your way through a big bush of plastic plants, after which you face the 80 cm high threshold and door which opens...........*).

Hope to have some pictures of all these lesser fortunes available asap. Take care and till the next time.
* Fill in the blank

Parabens

Today’s the day of “nossa senhora Aparecida”. The candle’s for her commemoration.

Grilling in the wild! Grill the wild! (pun intended)

On this date somewhere in the 40’s of last century, the Macedonians stood up against fascism. This moment is marked in Macedonian society with… a day off. When on such days the weathers permit it, bags are packed with food, drinks, utensils and even more food. All goes in a car and “they are GO!”. We were invited for such a treat. Had to be ready and after first getting some work done - the day off obviously doesn’t count for all in Macedonia ;) - we were picked up for the picnic.

Going around the Vodno mountain, we arrived at a little river just below the “women’s only” monastery of Sveti Marko. A popular spot. We were not the only ones there and obviously all of us were not the first to celebrate a grilling event in this beautiful place. Numerous traces were left behind – garbage! It’s sad to know that this is not the only beautiful scene in Macedonia which is spoiled by an abundance of people’s trash. How can this be changed?

In the end, we cleared up some ground around a tree next to the river and had our go at grilling our commemoration. With two uninvited guests.

Stop over for beautiful sunsets

Belgrade. The White City. Beautiful sunsets. It’s still a great break before entering Macedonian soil. Hvala Paulão and Ivaninha!

Here's a little update (14 Oct). I found two more photos which are IMHO worth having a look at.