Fool’s spring certainly fooled me! Last week, I was baring my arms in a t-shirt, considering dropping the strength of my vitamin D supplement, and splashing around in glistening Devon waves. This week, it’s back to the thickest of jumpers, the reluctant use of the boost function on the central heating widget, and bowls of broth.
Fool’s spring extends to the kitchen too. We may think (hope) that new crops are inbound, but we’re still a few weeks off. So in the meantime, I’ll keep banging the drum for pantry produce (by that I mean vegetables and fruits in jars, tins and freezer bags).
Today, we’re turning to jarred roasted peppers. Much like tinned tomatoes, jarred peppers seem to capture and preserve some little part of high summer. Having been roasted and peeled before preserving, they are en route to tenderness, and primed for a number of applications: romesco; frittatas; ajvar; flatbreads; peperonata…. I could go on, but we’ll stop there as peperonata is indeed the recipe below.
Originating from the south of Italy, the traditional building blocks of this stew/condiment/sauce/antipasti (it has as many different uses as jarred peppers themselves) are onions, garlic, tomatoes, and peppers. From there, additions include chilli, herbs, anchovies, olives etc.
As is often the way with Italian recipes in particular, there are as many variations and opinions as there are cooks. I am just one more cook adding one more variation and one more opinion to the pot.
My opinion is this. Often, peperonata leans too sweet for my liking. The inherent sweetness of stewed peppers needs to be brought back from the brink. As such, I forgo the use of onion (more sweetness! not needed!), and insist on the use of both capers and vinegar for acidity. The result is a bright, tangy condiment that I love in sandwiches, alongside a roast chicken or sausages, stirred through grains, loosened to a pasta sauce, with my morning eggs, as a perch for baked fish, and many other ways.
