My grocery store recently had a huge sale on peppers and I slightly overindulged. Today, a jar of peperonata before the savvy purchase became a bad investment seemed like a good idea.
This can be eaten at once, but a few days in its olive oil bath will add some depth to the peppers' character. I eat this peperonata as illustrated above with feta and mint, I put slices in sandwiches for added flavor, I throw them on pizza and in salads. Sometimes I chop a bit of red onion and add it to a dish of these peppers, along with capers, Italian parsley and Balsamic vinegar. Mostly, to be perfectly honest, I am disgusting and trashy and eat some over the sink as a midnight snack, straight from the jar with a long handled fork, standing in my kitchen in my bathrobe and dripping oil into the sink and down my chin. Mea Culpa.
This recipe is for two each of red and yellow peppers. This is addictive so I recommend doubling or tripling the recipe, which you can also make with a bag of the small assorted peppers that many stores seem to carry these days. This is something that is nice to have hanging out in your fridge for which you will find many uses.
4 peppers
2 cloves garlic, crushed but not peeled
1/2 bunch mint, roughly chopped
Olive oil
Salt
Preheat the oven to 325.
Place the washed peppers, which you have destemmed, deseeded and halved, in one layer on a lined baking tray.
Nestle the two cloves of garlic amongst the peppers. Drizzle with about a tablespoon of olive oil and salt liberally. You could add a bay leaf if you wanted to. Place in oven.
Cook for about 25 to 30 minutes until the pepper halves are soft and cooked through (the best way to check how tender they are by pricking them with a fork.)
Turn off the oven and leave them in the oven to cool.
Remove from the oven, set aside the garlic and remove the skin from each pepper half. As you do, cut each half into thirds lengthwise and place the pieces in a large mason jar.
Take the garlic out of the skin and place on a plate along with a pinch of salt. Using the tines of a fork, mash the softened cloves of garlic well until they form a puree.
In a small bowl, add the half bunch of chopped mint to 1/2 a cup of olive oil. Add some of the garlic puree and whisk together. Add this a little at a time, tasting as you go, to ensure that you get the garlic flavor exactly to your specification. I used a bit more than one clove and set the rest aside to use in salad dressing.
Pour the mint-garlic dressing over the peppers in the mason jar and add more oil if needed so that the peppers are completely submerged.
Marinate for at least an an hour before serving; a couple of days is even better.
To serve as per the title of this recipe, mound a few pepper slices of different colors on a plate, along with some of the mint from the jar. Sprinkle on as much Feta as you would like and serve this as an appetizer with crispy bread. Room temperature tastes best.
I use the olive oil from these peppers both for cooking and salad dressing as the level of peppers in the jar diminishes.