Chef Lesia
Adzhyka po-Ukrainsky (аджика, tomato-pepper relish)
The tomatoes go from garden-red to brick-red while the peppers slump and the garlic waits. By the end, the spoon leaves a path and the whole south fits in one jar.
Culinary Explorer
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Kvashenyi Perets (квашений перець, fermented sweet peppers)
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Red and yellow peppers go into the jar glossy and loud, then the brine turns cloudy and they soften into a sour, fizzy condiment for potatoes, beans, rye bread, and winter plates.
Sauces & Condiments
Ukrainian
Make Ahead
Batch Cooking
Budget Friendly
25 min
Active Time
0 min cook•25 min total
Yield1 large 2-litre jar, about 12 condiment servings
The jar looks like a summer market after closing: red, yellow, and green peppers pressed shoulder to shoulder, garlic hiding in the folds, dill heads gone pale under the brine. Then, after a few days, it starts talking. The brine clouds, little bubbles catch on the skins, and the raw green smell turns sour-sweet, like someone opened the litnya kuhnia, the summer kitchen, door in September.
This is kvashennia, our living brine, not a quick vinegar pickle. Sweet peppers have a lot of sugar and soft walls, so the salt has to hold them steady while the good bacteria do their work. Four percent brine is the spine here: strong enough to keep the peppers from collapsing too soon, gentle enough that their garden sweetness still comes through.
Aunt Nadia's letter had no timings, of course, only "perets, garlic, dill, until it sounds right," which was rude and accurate. You listen for the small tick in the jar when you loosen the lid, look for the cloudy brine, taste for a clean sourness. In August we'd be drowning in peppers; in January we open a jar instead. That's not a substitute. That's the actual tradition.
Sweet peppers became common in Ukrainian gardens after capsicums reached Europe from the Americas, and they settled especially well in the warmer Black Sea steppe and Bessarabian kitchens around Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Budzhak. In the litnya kuhnia, peppers joined tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, and even whole watermelons in brine, a household preservation system older than modern sterile canning. Soviet-era books favored vinegar and sealed jars because they standardized well, while living pepper ferments stayed mostly in family notebooks and on pantry shelves.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
firm sweet peppers
Quantity
1.2 kg
mixed colors, small peppers left whole or large peppers cut into wide panels
water
Quantity
1 litre
filtered or boiled and cooled
fine sea salt
Quantity
40g
4 percent of the water weight
garlic cloves
Quantity
6
lightly crushed
dill head with stalks
Quantity
1 large
or 6 dill stalks
horseradish, cherry, blackcurrant, grape, or oak leaves (optional)
Quantity
2
for tannin
black peppercorns
Quantity
1 teaspoon
bay leaves
Quantity
2
small hot pepper (optional)
Quantity
1
slit
unrefined sunflower oil (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
to serve
red onion (optional)
Quantity
1/2 small
thinly sliced, to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| firm sweet peppersmixed colors, small peppers left whole or large peppers cut into wide panels | 1.2 kg |
| waterfiltered or boiled and cooled | 1 litre |
| fine sea salt4 percent of the water weight | 40g |
| garlic cloveslightly crushed | 6 |
| dill head with stalksor 6 dill stalks | 1 large |
| horseradish, cherry, blackcurrant, grape, or oak leaves (optional)for tannin | 2 |
| black peppercorns | 1 teaspoon |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| small hot pepper (optional)slit | 1 |
| unrefined sunflower oil (optional)to serve | 1 tablespoon |
| red onion (optional)thinly sliced, to serve | 1/2 small |
Equipment Needed
- •A 2-litre glass fermentation jar with lid
- •A fermentation weight or small clean jar
- •A digital scale
- •A small plate to catch brine drips
Instructions
- 1
Clean the jar
Wash a 2-litre glass jar, lid, and fermentation weight in hot soapy water, rinse well, and let them air-dry. Clean is enough; you don't need a surgery theatre. Set the jar on a plate now, because the loud shelf likes to announce itself later.
- 2
Mix the brine
Stir 40g salt into 1 litre cool water until fully dissolved. Four percent. The scale wins here, because the salt is not only seasoning, it is the guardrail that lets the peppers sour cleanly instead of spoiling.
For a bigger jar, keep the same ratio: 40g salt for every 1 litre water. Weigh the water, weigh the salt, then relax. - 3
Prepare the peppers
Use small firm peppers whole, trimming the stems and cutting one long slit from shoulder to tip so brine can enter. If your peppers are large bell peppers, cut them into wide panels and pull away the core and big clumps of seed. Don't cut them thin. Big pieces stay meaty; little strips go soft before the sourness arrives.
- 4
Pack with dill
Put half the dill, garlic, tannin leaves, peppercorns, bay leaves, and hot pepper, if using, into the bottom of the jar. Pack the sweet peppers in tightly but without crushing them, then tuck the remaining dill and garlic down the sides. It should look crowded. Good jars are crowded.
- 5
Submerge completely
Pour in enough brine to cover the peppers by at least 2cm, then add a fermentation weight so nothing floats above the surface. Close the lid loosely, or use an airlock if you have one. Everything under the brine is food; anything above it is a problem waiting.
If a pepper keeps bobbing up, push a clean cabbage leaf or a trimmed piece of pepper on top under the weight. The brine line matters more than neatness. - 6
Ferment and taste
Leave the jar at room temperature, out of direct sun. Each day, loosen the lid if it is tight and press the peppers back under the brine with a clean spoon. The brine will turn cloudy, bubbles will cling to the skins, and the smell will change from raw green pepper to something fruity and sour. Taste from day five; in a cool kitchen it may want longer.
- 7
Chill and serve
When the peppers taste cleanly sour and the flesh bends but still has a bite, move the jar to the fridge. Serve them cold, sliced if they were fermented whole, with a little unrefined sunflower oil and thin red onion if you like. The brine is useful too: splash it into bean soup, potato salad, or borshch when fermented tomatoes have run out.
Chef Tips
- •Small thin-skinned sweet peppers are best, but supermarket bell peppers work if you cut them into broad panels. Avoid bruised peppers; fermentation improves flavor, not damage.
- •The tannin leaf is for bite. Horseradish, cherry, blackcurrant, grape, or oak all help keep the peppers firmer. No leaf to hand is fine, just expect a softer jar.
- •A thin white film on top can be kahm yeast if the smell is clean and sour; skim it and keep the peppers submerged. Fuzzy mold, pink slime, or a rotten smell means the batch goes out.
- •Use clean tongs or a fork every time you take peppers from the jar. Once refrigerated and kept under brine, they hold for 2 to 3 months.
- •Make this in late summer when peppers are cheap and ridiculous. Enough for eight guests or one hungry Ukrainian is the correct scale.
Advance Preparation
- •Ferment sliced or paneled peppers for 5 to 10 days at room temperature, depending on your kitchen. Small whole peppers often need 10 to 14 days.
- •Move the jar to the fridge when the peppers taste sour enough for you; cold slows the fermentation but does not stop it completely.
- •The peppers are best after a few days in the fridge, once the salt and sourness settle into each other.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 105g)
Calories
45 calories
Total Fat
1 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
1 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
620 mg
Total Carbohydrates
6 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
1 g
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