Today, tomorow, to keep: Peppers & chillies
LIA LEENDERTZ ENJOYS A SEASONAL CROP WITH A TRIO OF RECIPES FOR NOW AND LATER. THIS MONTH: PEPPERS
Even if you don’t grow your own, you’re likely to come across a glut from time to time – from a friend’s allotment perhaps, in your weekly veg box, or at a stall at the farmers’ market. Finding varied ways to eat and store this seasonal bounty is satisfying to mind, appetite and pantry. Spend a few hours with your glut and make a dish to eat right away, another for the next day, and a little something for the larder as a future treat.
This is the moment in the year when the veg patch becomes glamorous: the Mediterranean vegetables – peppers, chillies, aubergines, tomatoes – are here in force. In a good summer like this one, they can arrive a little earlier, but most years they’ll need plenty of time to make up for the fact that our weather is not regularly Mediterranean in feel. Chillies and peppers are particular sun worshippers, and September is their time, when they have finally clocked up enough sun hours to emerge, glossy and gorgeous, and full of fire and flavour.
At the two extremes of the pepper scale are sweet ones – those that are mild, crunchy and fresh and that can be happily eaten raw in salads or cooked down into a glorious oily pepperonata – and hot chillies, which will put heat into your dish and belly. But there is a gentle gradient between the two, and many of the hot chillies are really pretty mild, and are grown and cooked more for their fruity or chocolatey flavours than for heat. Even the hottest of chillies have complex flavours to impart if you can get beyond the heat, and there is a trick to this: the seeds are the hottest part, so slice through the pepper and remove the seeds before chopping and adding the chilli flesh to your dish. »