Piedmontese Peppers
My rather lovely friend Helaina, (English teacher and Assistant Principal extraordinaire) made these before we hiked the Routeburn track together last summer and I have been obsessed with them ever since. They are an incredibly easy way to recreate the Italian summer vibe with about 5-10 minutes prep and they look and taste so delicious.
It’s not essential but it is rather nice to take 5 extra minutes to blanche and remove the skin from the tomatoes, it is an additional step but very easy. Using a sharp knife, you need to first make a cross on the bottom of your tomatoes, pop them carefully into boiling water for 30 seconds and then with a slotted spoon you place them into iced water to quickly cool them down so you can easily peel them.
If you have a small child around, then these are a pretty excellent activity for a little one if they are over the age of 7-8. They might quite like to peel the tomatoes and nestle them into the capsicum halves like they are tucking the tomatoes into a little bed. I was pretty stoked to get Laksmi onboard this task!
There is something very relaxing about making this dish too, its kind of more like craft work rather than cooking and then you just drizzle the dish with some olive oil and pop them into the oven to roast and sweeten nice and slowly for a couple of hours.
Ingredients:
4 Red or Yellow Capsicums in half
8 large tomatoes or 16 medium sized tomatoes blanched (peeled)
2-3 Cloves of Garlic, slicedum
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
Slice the peppers in half.
Get a bowl of iced water ready so that you can pop your blanched (skinned) tomatoes into the water immediately.
Using a sharp knife, make a little cross on the bottom of each tomato. Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop the tomatoes into the water for around 30 seconds or until the skin loosens.
Using a slotted spoon, drop the tomatoes into the cold water, this will make it much easier to peel the skins off the tomatoes, and then using a small paring knife to help you hold onto the skin, remove the skins from the tomatoes.
Then just nestle the tomatoes into the capsicums. If you have big tomatoes, you will need to cut them to size. Arrange a few garlic slices around each capsicum, drizzle with olive oil and pop into the oven.
Cook for 1 - 2 hours.
Variations: Tuck in some olives, artichokes, anchovies or any Mediterranean herb.
Note: There is a fine line between caramelised and burnt… Which one is this?! Um, well, maybe burnt? Maybe just right?? Anyway, changing the subject right now… Ideally, this recipe is one to cook low and slow if you have the time, the will just get sweeter and more delicious. On this day I invited a particularly cute friend to visit and I forgot these were in the oven! But I love this photo and the summer colours and most importantly, they taste delicious.
Lovely lunch guests from the beautiful Holy Cow Flower Farm in Dunedin, Alida and baby Inge Dovekie.