Shopska (Vegetable Salad)

Shopska is a salad that is served covered with sirene cheese. It is very additive. It is little wonder it is so popular in Bulgaria. I have to say the cheese makes the dish giving the vegetables a lovely flavor that is hard to put into words.

I am glad I took the time to find this Bulgarian cheese in our local Mediterranean store. Sirene or Bulgarian Feta is not available by the name 'Feta' because of European politics. It is a white spongy cheese made from sheep or goat's milk. The cheese goes very well with the vegetables and the salad was amazingly good.

This recipe is mainly adapted from here and here. I read a lot of travelogues with pictures of this dish as presented in restaurants in Bulgaria and used that information for the presentation.

You will need
1 cup Sirene cheese (white sheep or goat cheese)
2 salad tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 red or yellow bell pepper
a bunch cilantro (the original uses parsley but we don't like it)
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt to taste if needed

Chop the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber. Mince the cilantro and combine it with the other chopped vegetables in a bowl. Add oil and mix together. Plate the vegetables and shred the cheese over the top. If needed add salt. I did not add any.