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Monday 20 March 2017

Pepper : Some helpful things to know ...


Also known as capsicums, bell peppers, sweet peppers or by their colours, for example red and yellow peppers.

These are a non-hot member of a large family that varies enormously in size, shape, flavour and heat content and that includes all the chilli peppers.

Green peppers are the unripe state of red peppers and are the most aggressively flavoured, being vegetal, acidic and a little bitter, traits that soften with cooking. Once ripe and red, peppers are gentler and sweeter in flavour and far more use raw or cooked, although it's common to use red and green peppers together.

Yellow and orange peppers are individual varieties rather than stages between green and red peppers, and both of these were specially bred to be sweet and gentle.

Purple peppers have a slightly stronger flavour but will turn green when cooked.


Availability:
One sort or another is usually available fresh year round. Canned and bottled peppers are excellent if preserved in brine or oil but less useful if preserved in vinegar or other acid.


Choose the best:
Peppers have a very long life, particularly when refrigerated. Check for puckering around the stalk end or wrinkling of the skin as early signs of ageing.

Prepare it:
However you want to slice up a pepper, you always need to remove the core, pith and seeds. To skin peppers, lay them on a foil-lined grill pan and turn the grill to high. Turn them now and again until the skin is blackened all over, then put them in a bowl and cover with cling film, or seal in an airtight plastic bag. When they're cool, their skin can be peeled off easily with your fingers.


Store it:
Peppers are best kept chilled and out of the light.


Cook it:
To peel or not to peel. That is a major question. Peppers are unquestionably even nicer to eat when skinned, which can be done by charring over a flame or by pouring on boiling water. Both methods are fiddly and time-consuming, especially when skinned red peppers are so easily and cheaply available in bottles and tins; skinned Spanish piquillo peppers are a great store cupboard addition.

Whether using raw or to cook, peppers should be cut from top to bottom in large slabs and then the pale inner vertical membranes removed, as these are always bitter.

Because they're acceptable eating when raw, pieces of pepper that are only part cooked add colour, juiciness and crunch to stir-fries, when the short heating time will soften them without fully cooking.

Otherwise, whether stuffed and roasted, gently fried in olive oil (with garlic of course) or similarly simmered in (tinned) plum tomatoes as a side dish or added to casseroles, fully cooked peppers add reliable flavour, colour and satisfaction.

Rings of any colour of pepper are something that should remain in the recipes of past decades, because cutting them like this means the bitter inner membranes have not been removed.


Words and picture from article here

The low carb team love red pepper see here

All the best Jan

18 comments:

eileeninmd said...

Hello, I love peppers and I do prefer either the red or yellow peppers. Great post and info.

Happy 1st day of Spring. Have a great new week ahead!

Christine said...

So interesting that a green pepper is an unripe red pepper!

Conniecrafter said...

MMMMM, peppers, I do love them, I am not big on them raw but I do love them cooked. I did learn one thing, I have never peeled them before or new that you even could :) I plant them in my garden every year and then freeze what I don't eat or give away to friends and have them all winter long until the next years batch is ready to be picked so I have them all year around :)
Hope you have a good week!

Jo said...

I'm not a fan of chilli peppers but I do love sweet peppers.

Valerie-Jael said...

Peppers are wonderful however you eat them, yummy! I love them raw or just fried quickly in a stir fry. Hugs, Valerie

NatureFootstep said...

we call them Paprika :)

JFM said...

Never knew that about a green pepper!
Well, live and learn as they say :)
another great post Jan~

Big Hugs

only slightly confused said...

We eat a lot of sweet peppers...mostly raw.

Jenn Jilks said...

I'd love to stuff them, but I just don't have the patience!!!!

HappyK said...

I love peppers - all the colors.
I have never peeled one though and didn't even realize you could.

Martha said...

I love peppers. There are so many wonderful ways to eat them. I particularly enjoy them stuffed or roasted. They were a very common food in my home growing up. My mom made them regularly.

Launna said...

I love colorful peppers... I eat lots of red/yellow/orange ones weekly... they are one of my favorite vegetables... I eat them raw most days but I do have a meal that I make called fried salad that is incredible with lots of peppers xox

Adam said...

I think it's rather neat that peppers have more vitamin c the hotter they are

Karen @ Beatrice Euphemie said...

I love peppers! Raw, stir-fried, stuffed or baked, I could eat them every day! I've never had a purple pepper, though - I'll have to look for those. My Mom made a wonderful stuffed pepper with brown rice and tomato sauce. I wish I wrote down her recipe, but I never did and now I regret it. Thank you for your kind comments regarding our pup, Peanut, Jann. Hope you have a wonderful week. xx Karen

handmade by amalia said...

I love peppers, especially the red ones, and use them in many dishes. Right now I'm try to dry them enough to make my own paprika.
Amalia
xo

Snowbird said...

I'm a huge fan of all peppers. That's a handy hint re peeling peppers!xxx

Magic Love Crow said...

I love peppers! Great post!!

Lisa said...

I've only started eating peppers in recent years My dad used to love them raw in a salad and say how delicious they were and I would wrinkle my nose and scoff at the statement. Now I enjoy a raw yellow pepper with hummus from time to time. Dad would be wrinkling his nose at the hummus!
Lisa x