Speca me Kajmak

Peppers, cream and three names

Speca is the Albanian plural of spec, a pepper. Kajmak, a word of Turkish origin meaning cream, is the name used in Albanian and several other Balkan languages for a creamy food similar to clotted cream. Wikipedia describes the traditional method: raw milk is boiled slowly and simmered for about two hours over very low heat, then the cream is skimmed off and left to chill and ferment slightly.

The dish goes by other names too. Living, an Albanian lifestyle magazine, calls it speca me ajkë or mazë and explains that maza is kajmak, the cream of the milk. Wiktionary glosses both words as cream, and Wikipedia notes that kajmak is also called ajkë in Albania.

Charred, peeled and simmered

In Living’s recipe, medium green peppers are charred in a dry pan over high heat, peeled, seasoned inside with a pinch of salt and a little butter, and fried lightly. A mixture of ajkë, kos (yoghurt) and gjizë (curd cheese) is poured over and brought to the boil until it thickens slightly, and the dish is eaten with fresh or homemade bread.

A simpler recipe from Gazeta inFokus, a news site based in Prishtina, uses only mazë, salt and roasted, peeled peppers, simmered together for about ten minutes. It says the dish is usually served for kaftjall, a regional word for breakfast, or as a starter at lunch.

Wikipedia’s article on Kosovan cuisine describes a traditional dairy food known by regional names such as long, lang or t’ngjym, made mainly from milk fat, often with a little gjizë, and eaten with bread. Served warm, it is commonly combined with roasted peppers.

Peppers kept in kajmak

The second form is a preserve. In a 2021 recipe in the Kosovo daily Kosova Sot, yellow peppers are cleaned of seeds, scalded, filled with crumbled cheese mixed with mazë, packed upright in jars or small buckets and covered with lukewarm boiled milk. Twice, at intervals of three or four days, the whey is poured off and more milk added; after three weeks in a cool place the peppers are ready.

Alsat, a national television station in North Macedonia that broadcasts mainly in Albanian, published a smaller batch in 2023 as speca n’kajmak, “peppers in kajmak”: small hot peppers half-filled with fresh cheese and covered with hot salted milk, with the liquid poured off and fresh milk added every fifth day. After three weeks, the recipe says, the container is full of firm cream, closer to cheese and scented with peppers, to be eaten as a side dish or salad, or simply with bread or pogaçe.

Dairy and peppers in Kosovo

Wikipedia counts bread, dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables among the staples of Kosovan cuisine and lists stuffed peppers among its common dishes. The World Travel Guide says dairy products are highly regarded in Kosovo and names peppers among the foods that feature prominently.

Writing for Prishtina Insight in 2016, Nate Tabak met a physician in Gjakova who remembered the town’s small speciality food shops, among them one devoted to kajmak, which Tabak calls the Balkan version of clotted cream.

In Emblem World, speca me kajmak sits in the Kosovo food collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.