Šopska salata

The story

Šopska salata came to Serbia from across the eastern border. The Belgrade food site Stvar ukusa calls it a Bulgarian national dish named after the Šopi people, and says it quickly became popular in Serbia, where it is eaten most often in summer. The Wikipedia survey of Serbian cuisine describes it as close to the plain Serbian salad of chopped vegetables, but topped with white cheese. That white layer is the point of the dish. Stvar ukusa grates 200 g of cheese over three tomatoes, two cucumbers, two peppers and a red onion dressed only with oil and salt, adds parsley, and notes that in some regions cooks insist on cheese from Stara Planina. Recepti.com uses green peppers, hot peppers, oil and vinegar and the same 200 g of full-fat cheese, while the tavern version published by Kurir roasts a kilo of peppers first and finishes with grated ripe cheese. There is no Easter custom tied to the salad. It belongs to the holiday the way any side dish does: Kurir's 2022 estimate of the Serbian Easter table counted salads alongside the roast lamb and pork. In late April and early May, buy the ripest tomatoes you can find and toss the salad just before the roast comes out of the oven.