Romanian Zakuska Recipe

This Romanian vegetable spread-Zacusca, as we call it in Romanian, is something I would make every year at the end of the summer. It combines roasted eggplant, roasted peppers, fresh tomato juice or paste, and onions, all slowly cooked to perfection.

I actually can it in jars and consume it during the winter. We serve it as an appetizer, but we also eat it on slices of fresh bread as a meal.

You can create a delicious platter with your favorite cheese, cold cuts, fresh red onion, and the vegetable spread zacusca, like in the picture below.

Traditional Romanian Food

Most Eastern European countries have a version of this spread. In some countries, the spread has more peppers and no eggplants. In other countries, they use more tomatoes and fewer peppers.

Some recipes also have carrots, parsley root, or celeriac to give the spread a little sweetness.The eggplant version is the most loved and popular, and this is what we will make today.

This Romanian vegetable spread- Zacusta, requires a little bit of work. I am not going to lie to you, but it takes some time to make, and only the dedicated one will put the effort and the work into making delicious Zacusca.

Roasted Eggplant And Pepper Spread (zacusca)

In the past, this spread was a way of surviving in the winter, as we did not have fresh vegetables like we have today in the stores all year round.

It is a shame that we don't do the canning more often. It saves money, trips to the store, and provides nutritious food for the entire family. At least you know what is in that food, right?

The vegetable spread uses roasted vegetables, so I will explain how to prepare them first. We will start with the eggplants because they are the heart and star of this spread.

Authentic Zacusca (100+ Year Old Romanian Recipe)

There are different ways to cook eggplants.I used them all, and they all work. It all depends on whatever your possibilities are and the time of year.

My favorite way of cooking eggplants for this spread is grilling them on a fire grill, but please go to the article I was telling you about because it will teach you some other methods when you don't have access to a fire grill.

The eggplant salad made with grilled eggplants will taste really smoky and delicious! Here is another recipe that has roasted peppers also.

Homemade Zakuska With Wild Mushrooms / Zacusca Cu Hribi Pregatita In Casa

Place the eggplants in a strainer and drain the juices out for about half an hour to one hour. This step will remove the juice from the eggplant that is supposed to be bitter.

Chop the eggplants on a wooden board with a special wooden/plastic knife made especially for this purpose (if you are Romanian and have one, of course) or with a regular knife.

A popular belief was that you should not touch the eggplants with metal because the eggplants would oxidize and the salad would not have a pretty color.

Light And Easy Zucchini Spread

I am not sure if this is true or not. In my opinion, using a regular knife should be ok. Most knives today are stainless steel.

You could process the eggplants in the food processor. The salad will then have more like a spread texture, which is delicious but not very authentic.

I prefer to chop the salad rather roughly so that I have something to chew here and there, but the degree of chopping is totally up to you.

From Dill To Dracula

Peppers are best roasted directly on an open fire. A wood grill is a perfect way to use but directly on a gas fire stove is perfectly acceptable.

Grill them until the skin is black and blistered. Remove them, let them cool a little bit so you can handle them, then peel off the skin and place them on a plate.

Or do it like in Mexico, where cooking with different peppers is the core of the cuisine: Place the charred peppers in a big bowl or pot and cover them with a lid for a few minutes.

What Is Ajvar? How To Use Balkan Roasted Red Pepper Spread

First, this vegetable spread is made in large pans that have a large surface for the liquids to evaporate. This way, the spread will be thicker and more delicious, not soupy.

The pan sits on the stove on lower heat and needs to be supervised at all times. You also need to stir in the pan most of the time to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom.

We start with the onions by slicing them Julienne. Any kind of onion is fine. I used red, but sometimes I use sweet onion or white, or even a mixture of them. It all depends on what I find in the store.

Your One Stop Shop For Mediterranean Delights Visit Meze Hub

In a big pan, place the oil and heat it up on the stove on medium heat. Add the sliced onions and cook them slowly on medium-low heat.

The thing is that I love cooked onions, so at this point, when the onions are translucent, I love stealing a few tablespoons from the pan and eating them o slices of bread with salt and pepper!

If I make this spread late in the fall, when tomatoes are not so great anymore, I buy the tomato sauce or paste and use it the same.

The Original Romanian Zacuscă Recipe

This vegetable mixture is now going to cook slowly on the stove for about an hour while I constantly stir so it doesn't stick to the bottom. After an hour, I taste for salt and pepper.

At this point, everything goes in the oven for about two hours at 350F/180C. It is ready when it becomes thicker, and the oil floats on top of the vegetables.While the spread is in the oven, I sterilize the jars.

The jars and the vegetable spread have to be hot when you fill the jars. I seal them and flip them upside down.

Zakuska Romanian Homemade Style Vegetable Spread Vava 540g / 19oz • Buy Online At Serdika Foods

I cover all the jars with a blanket and let them cool down. The next day I preheat the oven to 215F/100C and place the jars upside down on a baking tray inside the oven.

I remove them from the oven, label them and place them in a cool pantry for later use. The spread is good until summer if you don't finish the jars earlier.

We like opening the first jar in November, and I usually send jars with this spread to my daughter, who doesn't live in the same city as us.

ZacuscĂ”, Romanian Eggplant, Pepper And Tomato Relish

We like the spread as an appetizer, as I already said earlier, but we also like to take it to work or for lunch.

It could also be a light dinner, next to a few slices of good bread or crackers,  cold cuts, or good cheese, your favorite. It is the perfect food.Zacusca is a Romanian vegetable spread made primarily from roasted eggplant and red peppers. It is popularly served as a spread on bread, but also as a relish for meats. Learn how to make it with Chili Pepper Madness.

If you're a fan of roasted red peppers and roasted eggplant, you're guaranteed to become fan of this particular recipe, which is a combination of them both.

Zacusca Vegetable Spread Recipe By Dorina

It's a classic recipe popular in Romania, emphasizing local ingredients, and even though it's characterized as a spread, it's much more versatile than that. I've used it as a pasta sauce and also as a dip with bagel chips.

Zacusca is a vegetable spread made primarily from roasted eggplant and red peppers, though it also includes onions, tomatoes, oil and spices among other possible variable ingredients, depending on the cook. It is considered a Romanian eggplant and pepper spread, though it can be characterized as a sauce or a salsa. The spread is quite similar to Ajvar, a popular Serbian roasted pepper and eggplant sauce.

The peppers used are called the Gogosari pepper (variety of Capsicum annuum), characterized by their large, round pods that are deep red in color. The pepper walls are thick and fleshy, and sweet in taste. They've been grown in Romania for the last hundred years.

Markogi.eu / Markogi.eu

You can use red bell peppers, as I have done for this recipe, though large paprika peppers are great as well. You can make zacusca with any thicker-walled red peppers of any level of heat, so choose according to your preference and pepper availability.

Zacusca is usually in large batches after abundant harvests, then canned or jarred for preserving, allowing families to enjoy it all year long.

First, poke the eggplant flesh in several places with a knife (this allows steam to escape when cooking). Remove the stems from the peppers and core them. Slice them in half lengthwise.

Zacusca Stock Photos

FOR GRILLING: Heat the grill to medium heat and lightly oil the grates. Set the eggplant and red peppers (skin sides up) onto the grates and close the lid. Grill 20 minutes, or until the red pepper skins bubble up and char.

Remove them. Continue to grill the eggplant, flipping every few minutes to get an even char on the skins and the flesh is softened up, another 20 minutes or so. You can see how the eggplant skin has darkened and is ready to come off the grill.

FOR BAKING: Set the eggplant and red peppers onto a large foil-lined baking sheet. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. and bake the egglplant and peppers for 20 minutes,

Zacusca Von Sir_toni| Chefkoch