Lutenitza

Lutenitza is a traditional Balkan veggie relish, which we all love and buy in quantities. It comes in many varieties and tastes and the traditional recipes are vary labour-consuming . However, last year I came upon a recipe for "lazy lutenitza", tried it and loved it. This year I fine-tuned it and so far I've made at least 12 kg of the final product. One of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic for making lutenitza is that the factory-made product usually contains onions or garlic or both and I've been able to track just a single brand that is free of these additives. Since early childhood I've had an uncompromising intolerance for the smell and taste of onions, garlic, leeks and the likes, an idiosyncrasy, which does not make my life easy foodwise, but it is what it is. So being able to make my own lutenitza solves the problem of smell and taste and opens a field for experimentation.

The "lazy" part of the recipe is the preparation of the ingredients. Traditionally lutenitza is made from red peppers and tomatoes and one can add eggplants, carrots, onions, garlic, parsley, spicy peppers to taste. The tomatoes should be made into tomato paste, while peppers and eggplants are grilled, peeled and cleaned of the seeds. The lazy lutenitza requires just chopping the veggies, mixing them with salt and sunflower oil and baking them in the oven. When baked, the mix is blended, using a hand blender and then preserved in jars - this is so much easier and so quick and the taste is still excellent. Dependent on the ratio of the ingredients the taste can be sweeter or more sour or spicy.

This year our preferred  lutenitza is as follows:

• 8-9 red peppers (~ 1.2 kg)
• 4 tomatoes (~ 0.8 kg)
• 0.5 kg carrots
• 1 eggplant
• 1.5 tbsp salt
• 150 g sunflower oil

This is the quantity of vegetables I can get into my big oven tray. I cover the tray with foil and bake them at 250C for an hour and then another half hour at 250 C with fan. After the veggies have been baked, we transfer them into a cooking pot, blend them fairly smoothly, add 1/2 tbsp Italian vinegar balsamico and 1/2 tbsp sugar and a handful of chopped parsley,  bring the mixture to boil and fill it into jars. We sterilize the jars into boiling water for 20 min.

The relish is usually consumed with bread and white cheese.