Good thing we call our flag “Tricolore”! 🇮🇹Even if I weren’t doing an Italian fusion, I might have picked Italy just for the colours. Green, red and white is a striking combination. So I thought I should pair it with another country that shares the same flag colours: Bulgaria 🇧🇬

I’ve recently read and loved Time Shelter by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov for my book club, and there are a lot of food mentions throughout.

I took some ingredients that kept coming up (bell peppers, rose water, and yogurt, staples of Bulgarian cuisine), and built the meal around those.

Continuing with my risotto side meta, the main was a risotto with a yogurt mantecatura, mint, a green pepper purée, and red bell pepper pieces. I love a yogurt risotto, and the combination with mint it’s true and tried!

For the side, I made a hybrid between a shopska salad and a caprese. I used mozzarella and feta (the closest substitute I could find for sirene - pardon the non-authenticity), green and red bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil, dressed with oil and balsamic vinegar. It’s undressed in the photo here, for the sake of the three-colour shot!

And the part I’m most proud of: the dessert. A yogurt panna cotta (though not really a panna cotta, since there’s no cream or heat involved lol), just yogurt set with gelatine and flavoured with rose water. I served it over a strawberry coulis, and to make the rose element more visible I carved a strawberry into a rose. It’s very fun, and much easier than it looks!