Adjika without Vinegar
A spicy, scrumptious, can't-do-without adjika to brighten up winter! This one hardly needs an introduction—adjika is so tasty, so popular, so loved by many that every recipe for it deserves attention. But without vinegar, this delicious condiment is even better, because it's loaded with hot pepper and garlic.
Serve adjika any day, holiday or not, with anything—meat and fish, vegetable, pasta, or grain sides, crêpes, and more. It's even a pleasure just spread on a soft roll!
Cooking method
-
Step 1:
First, thoroughly sterilize the jars you'll seal the adjika into—and let the jars and lids dry completely.
-
Step 2:
Prep all the vegetables. Rinse the bell peppers and remove the stems and seeds.
-
Step 3:
Cut the peppers into pieces that fit your grinding equipment. With a meat grinder, you can cut them larger; I used a blender, so I cut them smaller.
-
Step 4:
Peel and rinse the garlic.
-
Step 5:
Rinse the hot peppers, then trim and chop them roughly.
-
Step 6:
Now prep the tomatoes. Rinse them several times in water and let them dry, or pat them dry with napkins or a paper towel.
-
Step 7:
Cut the tomatoes into the same size pieces as the peppers.
-
Step 8:
Mix some of the ingredients together in a bowl, load them into the blender, and grind. Keep going until everything is ground.
-
Step 9:
I ground it all twice, so it came out really nice.
-
Step 10:
Now cook this fragrant mixture down. Bring it to a boil first, then lower the heat and cook, stirring well with a spoon. Add salt to taste about five minutes before turning it off—I'll admit I didn't add much salt, since the adjika is going to be very hot, and salt is the last thing on your mind! Cook for about fifteen minutes, until it thickens.
-
Step 11:
The jars and lids are already dry, so ladle the boiling adjika into them. Screw on the lids, let them cool, and only then move them to a shelf in a cool spot. You can also process pint jars for about 15 minutes and then seal them. Or, to save even more time, you can skip the cooking entirely—just grind the vegetables, pack the mixture into clean jars, seal them with plastic lids, and keep them in the fridge.
- A few more tips: Choose whatever size jars you like, but if you won't use the adjika often or you have a small household, go with small jars. Adjika without vinegar keeps not just in the fridge (if you go with plastic lids) but in any cool spot—cooked down thick, it holds up well even without vinegar. You can add other ingredients to it, such as apples. There are no fresh herbs in this recipe, since the adjika is made without vinegar and herbs tend to make it spoil. If you like, add oil while it simmers—real sunflower oil is best—but then cook it 5–10 minutes longer. I listed 35 minutes of cooking time in the recipe, but if you scale up the ingredients, as in the recipe I used, it will take much longer. Keep that in mind!
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Tomatoes - 23 kcal/100g
- Sweet pepper - 27 kcal/100g
- Garlic - 143 kcal/100g
- Hot capsicum - 40 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
