Last Saturday our clan took a trip to the last Farmer’s Market of the year. We were perusing the produce of many local farmers when the peppers of one caught our eye. There were some beautiful red bell peppers on sale for .50 each.
‘How about these?’ I asked P.B.
She pointed at a large box that read 30lbs. for $25 and said ‘How about those?’ Next to the table on the ground was another box full of green bell peppers that said FREE. And that’s how we wound up with 35lbs of peppers.
So, what do you do with 35lbs of bell peppers? Well, we froze most of them, dried some of them, but half of them we FIRE ROASTED!!! Roasted Red Peppers have been popular for years, and as such they charge you out the ass for them at the store. The funny thing is, they’re super easy to do yourself and need not cost any more than the cost of the peppers. All you really need is fire and peppers. I did 15 lbs of them on my stove in an hour, here’s how.
STEP 1. Fire
If you’re fortunate enough to have a gas stove, turn all your burners on high. Otherwise, activate your grill. If you have no easy source of fire, then I’m sorry but you cannot make fire roasted peppers.
STEP 2. Peppers.
Place the peppers on your burners or other fire source. That’s right, just put them right on the burner
Peppers, right on your home burners.
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STEP 3. Rotate.
Keep turning the peppers until all the sides get nice and black. Resist the urge to turn peppers before they have actually started to char on one side. Don’t worry, what you’re actually burning is the thin, shiny membrane on the outside of the pepper, keep them rotating and the delicious flesh underneath won’t be harmed.
Turn! Turn! Turn!
This is what your peppers should look like when they are done roasting
STEP 4. Steam.
This is the easiest step. Once your peppers are nice and black, put them in a bowl and cover with an airtight lid or plastic wrap. The residual heat from roasting will mingle with the moisture of the peppers to create steam that will further loosen the skins. Let them cool like this on the counter until they’re room temp.
STEP 5. Cleaning.
Now, there are a lot of places that will tell you to just run the peppers under cold water and rinse off all of the char, but you will also be rinsing off most of the flavor leaving you with a bowl of slimy, flavorless peppers. Yum! DO NOT RINSE! You must now stand and rub off all the black charred skin with your hands,
Removing the charred skin
then wipe off all the seeds.
Stoopid, sticky seeds!
The finished product
Once all this is done it’s time to store or eat these yummy treats. We sliced and froze some and made the rest into a dip that we ate while watching Sunday football. The dip left a better taste in my mouth than the refs’ calls.
Enjoy!
I have a Mexican-American cookbook that says to do the steaming part by wraping them up in a paper bag. I’m not sure how the paper vs plastic debate rolls into the topic though.
It also says that if you have no fire and you are extra desperate, that setting your electric oven to Broil and putting them right up under the element works too. They probably don’t taste quite as good, but they still char the membrane and sure do taste yummy.
I’ve also heard about the paper bag technique, and the Ecuadorians that I’ve worked for all used it. It is a valid way to do this that has the added benefit of not using plastic. Just be careful as the moisture from the peppers will make the bag soggy.
As far as the electric broiler, that works great. But it really isn’t FIRE, now is it?