Got peppers?
We’ll show you how to roast peppers. Once you know the time-saving tricks, it’s easy!
Just as bread is really just toast-in-waiting, the humble pepper lives up to is most delicious potential when roasted. Sweet, concentrated, sublime pepperiness, here you come!
Sure, you can buy pre-roasted jarred peppers. They’re OK in a pinch, but once you try your own, you’ll see how much more wonderful they are. Jarred roasted peppers are packed in brine, which can alter the flavor. For some reason, the jarred version tastes bitter — they’ll need doctoring with plenty of garlic, salt, basil and olive oil. Your version will be sweet and delicious without any adornments. Homemade all the way, baby!
We got the tricks!
I remember the good ol’ days when I was a line cook at the Eagle Restaurant in London. Our Mediterranean-inspired menu had many uses for roasted red peppers: alongside anchovy rubbed grilled lamb, tucked inside a sandwich with roasted eggplant and melted cheese. For prep, I’d cook a grill-full of peppers, and then spend what seemed like forever to scrape the skins from the soft flesh, and picking off each and every seed. A labor of love! Worthwhile, but labor indeed.
Now that I’m an all-grown-up Hipcook, I don’t spend my precious time scraping peels and seeds. I’ve come up with time-saving tricks that don’t compromise flavor.
Step 1: Cook the peppers
If it’s a warm day and you’ve fired up the grill: go for it! Place the peppers directly on the grates, and cook on all sides until charred. Proceed to Step 2.
Otherwise, cook these beauties on the top rack of your oven. Place the peppers directly on the rack. HipTip #1: put an Exopat-lined baking sheet on a lower rack. This will catch the juices that fall from the roasting peppers, making cleanup a breeze!
Don’t be tempted by the “as seen on TV” trick of holding the peppers over an open flame on your gas stove to char the peppers. In our humble opinion: yuck! The skin will char, but it’s simply not enough cooking time. The peppers won’t cook through, and the whole point here is to have a soft fully-cooked pepper. The sweet and concentrated flavor comes from thorough cooking.
Step 2: Peel the Peppers
HipTip #2: Immediately after you remove the peppers from the grill or oven, place them in a bowl with a well-fitting lid. What happens here? The steam from the peppers continues the cooking process (yay!) but also loosens the skin from the flesh (double yay!) to make peeling a breeze. Simply lid and wait 20 minutes or so, until the peppers have cooled to the touch. See how the skins just slip right off? Pull off the stems and skin, and discard. Put the peeled peppers to one side, and keep the flavorful liquid collected from the cooling peppers in the bowl – it’s full of flavor.
Step 3: Remove the Seeds from the Peeled Peppers
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, but I’ll be damned if I have to painstakingly remove the bitter seeds from the peppers. I want this job to be easy! HipTip #3: Put those seed-flecked peppers in a bowl of water for about 5 minutes. Whaddya know? After a little stir or two, those seeds sink straight to the bottom of your bowl. Just pick out your deseeded peppers, and put them back into their reserved juices. Store the peppers (in their own marinade) up to a week, or use right away.
I’m dreaming of roasted red peppers. . .
Stay tuned next week for a fabulous recipe using roast peppers in Hipcooks Romesco. We were delighted with our lunch that day! Or we’ll see you in these Hipcooks Classes, that love these tricks on how to roast peppers, too:
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4 bell peppers Preheat the oven to 400° F. Place the peppers directly on the top rack of the oven with an Exopat-lined baking tray on the rack below to catch any juices that may fall. Check every 20 minutes or so to rotate the peppers so that they cook on all sides. (Your kitchen will start to smell quite yummy!) If you have a grill, just whap them on the hot griddle and turn every so often as they blacken. The peppers are finished when the skin is charred and/or puffy on all sides. (They’ll take about 40 minutes in the oven, about 15 minutes on the grill.) Pop them into a bowl that you can cover tightly. (If you do not have a lid, then plastic wrap is fine. ) The bowl will steam up immediately - excellent, the peppers will finish cooking and the steam will loosen the peppers from their skins. When they're cool enough to handle, you can easily peel them, reserving the juices. Remove the stems and discard these, along with the peels. De-seed the peeled peppers by submerging them in water, stirring gently, and waiting until the seeds sink. Discard the water and seeds, and store the peppers in their juices. They'll keep up to a week.
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