Monday 2 August 2010

Piedmont stuffed peppers

I'm pretty neutral about Delia Smith, but it has to be said that she has come up trumps with various recipes that have featured on this blog such as the rhubarb crumble ice cream and profiteroles. There was a sort of retrospective of her 'work' on television a while ago, and it reminded me of a recipe from her Summer Collection book that I always meant to try but never got round to making. As Delia herself says this is not an original recipe but one that was popularised by Elizabeth David. Delia's recipe uses regular bell peppers but I'd really recommend using those sweet, pointy peppers instead. Having tried it with both, the regular peppers were a bit watery and lacking in flavour compared to their pointy brethren.
So to make these Piedmont peppers, just cut them in half length-ways and scoop out any seeds or white pith. Place on a baking tray and put a couple of chopped anchovy fillets, a few slices of garlic, and some halved cherry tomatoes inside each pepper. Season with a little pepper, and drizzle a couple of teaspoons of olive oil (I use the oil the anchovies came in) over each piece of pepper.
Bake in a moderate oven (gas mark 5) for around 45mins or until the peppers are soft and collapsing. These peppers are so quick to prepare they make a great side dish, and could probably be made entirely vegetarian with the substitution of the anchovy with a suitable salty cheese. I served these with some roasted sweet potato and grilled tuna, and it made a great summer dinner. Ideally eaten while pretending to be a Piedmontese peasant.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi! I have made these too, after finding them in Elizabeth Davids book. I found the long pepper excellent for them too! So yummy.

TheFastestIndian said...

This does seem to be quite a classic recipe- not sure why it took me so long to try it!