Stir fry dishes are popular in Bulgaria, especially in summer and fall, when fresh peppers are in abundance. Maria Duness-Rose of PriMaria restaurant takes advantage of the pepper harvest in this vegetarian specialty.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
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Video: Cooking step-by-step, Mish Mash, Bulgaria
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Maria Duness-Rose: "I'm a good host."
Welcoming guests and making them feel at home is a tradition in Maria Duness-Rose's Bulgarian family. As a child, she watched her mother and grandmother master the skill and on top of that, Maria Duness-Rose's grandfather operates a successful restaurant in her hometown of Sofia. She has clearly inherited her family's talents. The marketing expert first visited Berlin in 1991, and she was immediately impressed. Later on, back in Bulgaria, she met a German and fell in love. That made it a relatively easy choice for her to move to Germany.
Maria Duness-RoseImage: Lena Ganssmann
PriMaria in Berlin's Friedrichshain district
PriMaria is her second successful restaurant venture; her first was successfully in business for seven years before the lease was cancelled. She needed to move and started PriMaria anew in the Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain.
50 kitchens, one city: Bulgaria
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Mish Mash
Serves 4
Ingredients:
12 medium-sized tomatoes
4-6 fresh bell peppers (or roasted peppers in a jar)
2 onions
280 g Bulgarian feta cheese
4 eggs
4 pinches, "A Touch of Bulgaria" (spice mix with fenugreek leaves, savory, paprika, oregano and salt)
6 garlic cloves
Parsley
4 pinches of salt and sugar, respectively
Preparation:
Wash bell peppers and roast them in the oven at 220 °C. Cool and remove skin, cube peppers. Dice onions and sauté until transparent. Cube tomatoes and add to onions in the pan along with skinned peppers. Add sugar, salt, and Bulgarian spice mixture to taste, continuing to sauté. Add eggs and crumbled feta cheese, and stir carefully, ensuring that the mixture does not become soggy. Remove from heat, add finely chopped garlic and half of chopped parsley, and stir carefully. Move to an oven-safe form and broil briefly. Garnish with remaining parsley and serve with bread.
PriMaria prepares Mish Mash
Stir fry dishes are popular in Bulgaria, especially in summer and fall, when fresh peppers are in abundance. Maria Duness-Rose of PriMaria restaurant takes advantage of the pepper harvest in this vegetarian specialty.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
A Bulgarian standard!
"Peppers are used in nearly every dish in Bulgaria - in all varieties and manners, from dried to baked to peeled. … in the dish Mish Mash, peppers are baked, roasted and peeled. When the peel is removed, the pepper has a very sweet, mild flavor!" - Maria Duness-Rose
Image: Lena Ganssmann
A taste of home
Maria Duness-Rose named her restaurant PriMaria, which in Bulgarian means: “At Maria's.” Many of the guests who visit are regulars who appreciate the personal atmosphere. Guests should feel both at home and a bit as though they are in Bulgaria. That's also why the only wines offered on the menu are Bulgarian.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
From Sofia to Berlin
"I came to Berlin for the first time in 1991 and found the city quite beautiful and very open - a real metropolis. Berlin is quite wide, very light and green. And I met a very nice man here!" - Maria Duness-Rose
Image: Lena Ganssmann
Simple preparations
Mish Mash is a popular dish in Bulgaria, and one that is easy to prepare. The name is an apt description, as the ingredients are mixed together in a large pan. At the very end, Bulgarian goat cheese is carefully folded in.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
Authentic Balkan culture
The vegetarian dish is served with bread and a traditional schnapps liqueur. Although it's a relatively simple dish, consuming it in Bulgaria is writ large - one meal can take quite some time, explains Maria Duness-Rose. And at PriMaria, the food is so delicious, one may not want to leave - just like at a friend's home.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
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Restaurant PriMaria
Gärtnerstr. 12
10245 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 29044976
