🥗 STARTER
Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream)
Blistered, peeled peppers fried with garlic and simmered in a rich sauce of kajmak, yogurt and fresh white cheese, scooped up hot with plenty of warm bread.
Kosovar · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 25 min
~278 cal · 10g protein · 18g carbs · 19g fat · 4g fiber · 8g sugars · 9g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Speca me maze, peppers in maze, is one of the best-loved home dishes of Kosovo and the Albanian lands around it. Maze is the local word for kajmak, the thick, slightly tangy cream skimmed from boiled milk and left to ripen, and in this dish it melts with yogurt and fresh curd cheese around soft, smoky peppers into a sauce that is mopped up with bread.
The peppers are blistered in a hot dry pan or over a flame until the skins blacken, peeled, and then fried gently in a little oil or butter with garlic. The dairy goes in last and is brought just to a bubble so it thickens without splitting. Green peppers are common and red ones make it sweeter. The same combination of roasted peppers and soft dairy runs all through Kosovar cooking, and similar dishes are made across the Balkans, such as the Serbian paprike u kajmaku.
It is eaten as a meze or starter, or as a simple supper with fresh bread, and is best straight from the pan.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
- 8 long sweet peppers, green or red
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 200 g kajmak (maze)Hard to find? 200 g clotted cream or mascarpone with a squeeze of lemon - rich and creamy, but sweeter and without the ripened tang of kajmak
- 150 ml plain yogurt
- 100 g fresh white cheese (gjizë) or mild feta, crumbled
- 1 tbsp butter
- to taste salt
- plenty warm crusty bread, to serve
Instructions
- 1Blister the whole peppers in a hot dry heavy pan, over a gas flame or under the grill for 10 to 15 minutes, turning, until the skins are blackened in patches and the flesh is soft.
- 2Put them in a covered bowl for 10 minutes, then peel off the skins. Leave them whole with the stalks on, or pull out the seeds, as you prefer. Salt them lightly.
- 3Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium heat and fry the peppers and garlic gently for about 5 minutes, turning once, until the garlic smells sweet but has not browned.
- 4Beat the kajmak, yogurt and cheese together with a pinch of salt, tasting first, since kajmak and cheese can be salty. Pour it over the peppers.
- 5Bring just to a gentle bubble and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, shaking the pan, until the sauce thickens slightly. Dot with the butter and serve hot from the pan with plenty of bread.✎ Chef’s noteKeep the heat low once the dairy is in. A hard boil makes the yogurt split.
Kosovar and Albanian home tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Pristina. Flija is built one layer at a time under a sac, an iron dome heaped with burning coals. A thin batter is spooned on in a pattern, cooked, brushed with kajmak, then the next layer goes over it, for two or three hours, until it stacks a dozen or more sheets deep.
🗺️
Kosovo. It is not Kosovo's alone: the same dish is made in Albania, in northern Montenegro and in North Macedonia, where it is called gjomleze. The sac that cooks it is the same tool as the Croatian peka and the Montenegrin sac, which is a good reminder that the Balkans share equipment as much as recipes. Burek here means the pastry generally rather than one filling.
🌍
Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Kosovo
FlijaA patient, many-layered pancake built up batter-by-batter under live coals, served with butter and cream.
Pite me SpinaqLayered thin-pastry pie filled with spinach and cheese, baked until crisp, a Kosovo staple.
PasulA slow-simmered white bean stew rich with paprika and onion, the everyday food of Kosovo.
Browse all Kosovo recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Grill or barbecue.
Storing it: Best the day it is made. Wrap well and refresh in a warm oven, or freeze and reheat straight from frozen.
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SheqerpareDessert
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream)?
Blistered, peeled peppers fried with garlic and simmered in a rich sauce of kajmak, yogurt and fresh white cheese, scooped up hot with plenty of warm bread.
Where does Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) come from?
Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) is a Kosovar dish from Pristina, Kosovo.
Can Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Speca me Maze (Kosovar Peppers in Kajmak Cream) take to make?
About 40 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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