Urnebes Salad – Serbs like it hot

Serbs love to eat so much, and Serbian kitchen is mainly based on meat. Yes, we are carnivores; and so do our guests become when they taste our meat specialties. However, the unbreakable part of Serbian cuisine are the fresh sidedishes and dips for which we have one name – „salata“. Although it’s usually used for fresh salads, the term „salata“ is also used for thick dips which we use to spice up our meals. And yes, we like spicy very much…

One of the most popular Serbian dips, which is served throughout the year is Urnebes salata. It originates from temperate Serbian South, hence this salad cannot be much different, but HOT! One of the most famous South Serbian brands is PAPRIKA or RED PEPPER, both mild and chilly – and this is what this salad is all about. Even its name „URNEBES“ means brouhaha. So, let’s try to make it!

Urnebes Salad Recipe

For urnebes salad try to obtain following ingredients:

• 500 g or 1,1 pounds white cow or sheep cheese or farmer cheese
• 1 table spoon kajmak (or if you don’t have access to kajmak – try cream-cheese)
• 10 roasted peppers (you’ll find the instructions below)
• 5 roasted chilly peppers (you’ll find the instructions below)
• 6-7 cloves of garlic
• 3 hard-boiled yolks
• 1 teaspoon grounded red pepper
• some olive or vegetable oil and some salt

Roast peppers and chilly peppers in a stove, at the temperature of 200°C or 390°F. They don’t need much time to roast, so you have to turn them over quite often. As soon as you notice burn marks on them – you can pull them out. It takes about 25 minutes to roast them. After the peppers are roasted – put them in a deeper dish and cover them either with a lid or with a cloth – it will be much easier to peel them later. As soon as they cool a little bit – maybe just a little bit warm – you can peel them. Remove the petals and seeds from the inside, and chop them up finely. Put the cheese in a large bowl and mash it thoroughly, then add both peppers and chilly peppers and continue to mash.

Photo by Taste Serbia

Succesively add finely chopped garlic and yolks, then kajmak or cream-cheese and mix the mass thoroughly until its evened. Now add a little bit of oil and a small pinch of salt – you can taste it and determine the amount of oil and salt depending on your preferences. Mix it a little bit more, so the mixture could apsorb the oil and salt, and voila! Your Urnebes salad is almost ready! Let it cool down in the fridge for couple of hours – it will be much better as the ingredients will mix their aromas.

Urnebes salad can be combined with practically every dish which tolerates chilly flavor. It goes perfectly with BBQ, we prefer it even as an appetizerwith our smoked meat, cheese, cornbread and rakija… Find your Urnebes perfect harmony and let us know, OK? Now enjoy!

Writen by Petar Živić / Serbia Incoming DMC Project Manager