Anne Morgan There’s no rice or mince in Delia Smith’s Piedmont peppers, the stuffed peppers she has printed most often. Halved red peppers are filled with skinned tomatoes, an anchovy fillet, slivers of garlic and a spoonful of olive oil each, then roasted for up to an hour until their edges toast. It’s a starter for 4.
The recipe has quite a pedigree. Elizabeth David first wrote it down in Italian Food, Franco Taruschio cooked it at the Walnut Tree Inn near Abergavenny, and Simon Hopkinson put it on his menu at Bibendum in London, which is where Delia ate it.
She printed it in her Summer Collection (1993), then again in The Delia Collection: Italian (2003) and Delia’s Kitchen Garden (2004). It even changed how she cooks peppers. After this one she stopped peeling them, having decided these were the best cooked peppers she’d ever tasted.
Her other well-known stuffed peppers are the Turkish stuffed peppers in her Complete Cookery Course, whole peppers packed with rice and leftover lamb for a main course.
Delia Smith’s Piedmont Roasted Peppers
Course: StarterCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings15
minutes1
hour275
kcalSoft, sweet and slightly charred, sitting in a pool of garlicky, anchovy-scented oil that begs for bread.
Ingredients
- For the peppers:
4 large red peppers (not green)
4 medium tomatoes
8 tinned anchovy fillets, drained
2 cloves garlic
8 dessertspoons Italian extra virgin olive oil
freshly milled black pepper
1 small bunch basil leaves, to serve
Directions
- Heat the oven: Preheat it to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas mark 4, and lightly oil a shallow, solid roasting tray of about 40 x 30cm.
- Halve: Cut each pepper in half lengthways through the stalk, scrape out the seeds and leave the stalk on. Lay the halves in the tray, hollow side up.
- Tomatoes: Cover the tomatoes with boiling water for 1 minute, drain, slip off the skins and cut each into quarters. Put 2 quarters into every pepper half.
- Fill: Snip one anchovy fillet roughly over each half, peel and thinly slice the garlic and share it out, then spoon 1 dessertspoon of oil into each. Grind over some black pepper, but add no salt, as the anchovies bring plenty.
- Roast: Put the tray on a high shelf for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the peppers are soft and darkened at the edges.
- Serve: Move them to a serving dish, pour all the juices over and scatter with basil. Have good bread on the table for the juices, and she suggests focaccia.
Notes
- Keep the tray shallow. Deep sides stop the edges toasting, and those nutty, browned bits are half the flavour.
- She rates them most in autumn, when red peppers are in season and the tomatoes are ripe and red.
FAQs
Why leave the stalks on?
They aren’t eaten, but she keeps them because they look good on the plate and help each half hold its shape in the oven. Cut straight through the stalk so each half keeps a piece.
Which peppers work best?
Large red ones, and never green, which she rules out. Yellow or orange peppers are ripe and sweet in the same way, so they’re my own fallback.
Red still gives the deepest flavour and the best colour against the tomatoes.
Is there a vegetarian version?
Yes, her roasted red peppers stuffed with fennel, in her Vegetarian Collection (2002) and again in Delia’s Happy Christmas (2009). Instead of anchovies and fresh tomatoes, each half gets tinned plum tomatoes and fennel, with coriander and fennel seeds, mixed peppercorns and a squeeze of lemon.
It roasts at the same 180°C and needs just as much bread.
Can I make them ahead?
Yes, a few hours ahead is fine, in my view. For her fennel version she says to cool them, cover with foil and leave them out of the fridge, because chilling spoils the fragrance, and I’d treat these the same way.
I’d serve them warm or at room temperature, with the juices spooned back over.
Can I turn them into a tart?
You can, and she did it twice. How to Cook Book Three (2001) turns the same flavours into a warm winter tart for 8, with the roasted peppers, tomatoes and anchovies blended into an egg filling in a Parmesan and thyme pastry case.
How to Cheat at Cooking (2008) has quick Piedmont pepper tarts on rounds of ready-made puff pastry, using roasted peppers from a jar.
How else can I serve them?
As a light lunch. The introduction to that chapter of her Summer Collection picks them out for one, saying people never believe how simple they are to make.
As a main, I’d allow 4 halves a person, so the tray feeds 2, with plenty of bread.
