What is urnebes salad? Where does this name come from? How to translate this name into English? Reading some blog articles about this salad, the word in English appears to be “hilarious.”
I think this salad has a more appropriate name, such as hot or spicy, but this depends on your ingredients.
I was surprised at how different the hilarious salad recipes are; I thought there was only one standard recipe and variations on the theme were almost impossible, but it is not.
The Short History of Urnebes Salad
It originates from the Serbian South; this salad cannot be much different, but hot! One of the most famous South Serbian brands is pepper or red pepper, both mild and chilly – and this is what this salad is all about.
Urnebes salad without hot fresh pepper (not ground one) is not good. Of course, red roasted pepper should be thick and meaty. This salad is always on the Easter table with the obligatory barbecue. It is trendy in the area of Nis Town.
Meat dishes always follow this salad. I advise serving the Serbian Urnebes Salad as a side dish to meat or spreading it on a slice of bread. Very similar to this salad in Serbian ajvar, a condiment made principally from sweet bell peppers and eggplants.
Urnebes Salad Recipe
Two ingredients are crucial for an excellent hot salad. You can always prepare a sweet variation of this salad, but without hot peppers, it will not look like the original one.
The second ingredient is cheese, cream cheese. In the South of Serbia, full-fat salted cow's cheese prevails, while sheep's or mixed cheese dominates in Eastern Serbia. Kajmak, cream cheese prevails.
What alternative kind of cheese can you use if you live in another country with no kajmak cheese? Any white cow or sheep cheese or farmer cheese will do.
As a substitute, you can opt for Philadelphia cream cheese, but a better choice is feta cheese (usually Greek feta). Using 50g of butter, 50g of feta, and 50ml of sour cream, also will do.
Urnebes Salad Ingredients
- 150g roasted red bell peppers (seeds and steam removed)
- Five chilly roasted peppers (seeds and moisture removed)
- Four hard-boiled eggs
- 350g feta cheese
- 150g kajmak (or alternative cheese)
- Two teaspoons of oil
- 3-4 garlic cloves
- 1-2 teaspoons ground sweet red paprika
- 1-2 teaspoons red hot pepper
- salt
Put sweet and chilly peppers on 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.
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.
You can peel them as soon as they cool a little bit – maybe just a little bit warm. Remove the petals and seeds from the inside, and chop them up finely.
The Final Result
After you cut the sweet and chilly peppers into tiny pieces, you can grind them in the food processor and make a mixture by adding in hard-boiled eggs that you have smashed with a fork.
Add in the feta, kajmak( or another kind of cheese), oil, and whisk with an electric mixer. Add in the finely grated, finely cut, or pressed garlic, salt, sweet red paprika, and red hot chilly flakes.
Urnebes salad goes with practically every dish, which tolerates chilly flavor. I prefer it even as an appetizer with smoked meat, cheese, cornbread, and rakija (fruit brandy).
Find your Urnebes in perfect harmony and let me know, ok? Now enjoy!
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