Zacuscă

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zacuscă on bread

Zacuscă ( zaˈkuskə ) is a puree made from peppers , aubergines and tomatoes that is used in Romanian cuisine as a condiment and spread .

preparation

Typically, the mush is prepared after the autumn harvest. The peppers are roasted until the skin is slightly blackened and the surface appears wrinkled. The eggplants are also roasted until they are soft or the peel tears slightly, which is then removed with the bitter liquid. The cooled peppers are peeled and pitted and then roughly chopped. Seared onions and finely chopped boiled carrots, cut in half slices, simmer for about 30 minutes, then bay leaves, salt and pepper are added to the paprika mixture. After another 30 minutes, the tomato strained with a little sugar and the roughly chopped eggplant are added. A knife or mixer should not be used to chop the eggplant, as these will break up the kernels, making the food bitter. A cleaver (where the cutting edge is made of wood) is the more suitable instrument.

Sometimes other ingredients are also used, such as B. celery, mushrooms ( Zacuscă de ciuperci ), beans ( Zacuscă cu fasole ) or fish ( Zacuscă lipoveană de peşte ). The mass simmer for another 30 minutes and must not burn at any time, if necessary oil is added. The paste then braises (at 200 ° C convection) for a total of 4–5 hours and, with occasional stirring, reduces to a firmer consistency. The hot mass is then filled into boiling hot mason jars to keep them safe.

It is not uncommon to produce around 7–8 kg of spreads during one cooking cycle. The maturation of zacusca several months in cool conditions to improve the taste. Traditional home cooking is often prepared at home, but it is also commercially available.

Word origin

The term zacuscă has its origin in the Slavic languages (cf. Russian закуска sakuska ), German  appetizer or snack . The Russian root word кус kus means bite , from which the Russian terms вкусно vkusno ' "tasty", кусать kusat' "bite" or закусывать zakusyvat ' "eat a bite" are derived.

See also

Ajvar , Erős Pista , Letscho and Ljutenica are pastes of a similar type widely used in the Balkans .

Web links

Commons : Zacuscă  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ion Coteanu, Luiza Seche, Mircea Seche: DEX: Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române , Univers enciclopedic. Academia Română, Institutul de lingvistică, 1998, p. 1192 (Romanian)
  2. ↑ vidahl.agava.ru ( Memento from April 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), Толковый словарь В. Даля on-line , Vladmir Dals dictionary on-line, in Russian; Retrieved October 29, 2011