My New Favorite Food

I've fallen in love with red peppers. I rarely ate them before I came to Serbia, save for maybe in spaghetti sauce or on a salad every now and again. Serbia has a love affair with the things -- they call them "paprika" here, and they eat them all year, and in everything. They are the main ingredient in "ajvar" -- the famous red pepper paste that I had a chance to help make last October (see my post from October 2009 on our ajvar-making day). Really, Serbs are just crazy about their paprika.

To be more precise, though, I guess I should say that I started to develop an appreciation for red peppers after making ajvar last October, but didn't really fall in love with them until I discovered that you could BREAD them and FRY them and that they were the MOST DELICIOUS THINGS EVER!! I first experienced this delicacy several months ago while on a business trip (of sorts) with a Serbian friend. Since then, I've had them a few times in restaurants. Always delicious. A Serbian friend suggested that I try making them at home, and so I did -- last night. I don't often feel this way about my cooking, but these things rocked. I'll admit that instead of using fresh peppers from the market, I used marinated roasted red peppers from a jar (another Serbian friend told me that these are better to use because they have more flavor). I need to fine-tune the recipe a bit, but I dipped each piece in egg, then flour, then breadcrumbs, and then sauteed them in olive oil for about 5 minutes on each side. Delicious!! Try it -- you just might like it.