Roasted green pepper and onion antipasto

Roasted green pepper and onion antipasto: A pile of green bell peppers turned out to be quite the challenge for our kitchen. You can find no end of recipes for stuffing green pepper (and please, please, please! Regardless of what any stuffed pepper recipe says, blanch those peppers before stuffing them!!) but not so many for other dishes outside of a tasty salad. So, we were very excited to come across a very simple recipe for roasted peppers referred to in our post entitled “6 amazing green bell pepper recipes you need to know“.

The original recipe is from Almost Turkish Recipes and is for Green Peppers in Vinegar and Garlic Sauce (Sirkeli Biber). We headed into the kitchen with our basket of freshly picked green bell peppers and were already toying with the recipe in our head.

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Although we were drawn to this recipe for its simple technique of using the grill (broiler). It turns out to be a very efficient way of grilling peppers. For one thing, you don’t have to stand over them. Lay them on a tray and pop them about 6 inches away from the heat of the broiler for about 15 minutes on each side. There are about 3 sides to the average pepper. Here is what they looked like after the first 15 minutes:

We had a selection of peppers in our basket including some jalapeno and a couple of other varieties we could not identify but every single one of them was welcome on our baking tray. They went under the grill just as they were. A further 15 minutes later and they looked like this:

The heat slowly dries and lifts the fine outer skin from the flesh until after a further 15 minutes it peels away relatively easily.

Leaving the peppers to cool will allow you to peel away that thin layer of skin more easily and this is where it can get a bit fiddly. Peel the peppers then cut them open to expose the inside. Using the back of a knife, scrape away and discard the seeds.

Slice your peppers into finger-width lengths. Soak them in equal parts of olive oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle in some finely chopped fresh garlic and toss it all together. Since the roasted green peppers can be a little bitter, you may want to add a drop of honey or some sugar to the mix. Add in small amounts and taste it as you go until you reach your desired flavour.

The idea to add a jar of Sweet Onion Jam by Vi came about because we didn’t want to sweeten the roasted green peppers too much. Vi’s Sweet Onion Jam added the perfect proportion of sweetness and texture that we needed and so it came to pass that our Green Pepper and Onion Antipasto was created!