Hot Aivar – 314g

Hot Aivar – Spicy Roasted Pepper Spread – from Pelagonia, Macedonia

Pelagonia Hot Aivar is a fiery spread made from the finest, roasted, spicy peppers from Macedonia. This flavorful meze of spicy red bell peppers and roasted eggplants is a wonderful culinary discovery and still a secret tip. Pelagonia Hot Aivar is incredibly versatile; it pairs perfectly with salty cheeses like feta or pecorino, and is a savory spread for sandwiches or falafel wraps. Hot Aivar goes well with roasted potatoes, pasta, and rice dishes, and is an indispensable dip for flatbread. It tastes great with meat dishes like köfte, lamb skewers, or grilled foods, but even fish like sea bream can benefit from a spoonful. It's perfect for the pantry or a picnic. Pelagonia Hot Aivar complements anything you want to refine with a smoky, fiery flavor. Spicy and yet fruity in taste, it adds a pleasant kick to your dishes.

Hot Aivar – Spicy Vegetable Paste

Aivar and Hot Aivar are something of a national treasure in Macedonia and the Balkans; the vegetable paste is served with numerous dishes and is an ingredient in many local recipes. Hot Aivar is of such great importance in former Yugoslavia that the harvest season in late summer, known as the "5th season," is also referred to as Aivar. So, in late summer, when the Macedonian bell peppers, prized for their particularly good taste, have developed their red color, smoke clouds rise in the gardens across the country. This is also true for the approximately 650 small farmers of the Pelagonia cooperative in southwestern Macedonia. Diligently, they have harvested their tasty, spicy peppers and are now grilling them over an open fire until the skin is completely black and charred. In painstaking manual labor, the fiery peppers are peeled to be processed with equally roasted eggplant, sunflower oil, and salt into delicious Hot Aivar.