Green pepper and tomato salad
I'm always amazed at how many peppers you get in a kilo. I usually try to by half a kilo, but in season, when things are particularly cheap and plentiful, the guys down our local bazaar get a bit annoyed when I start asking for half-kilos of this and handfuls of that. They would much rather I took more even if at a much cheaper price. The thing is, when you're selling fresh produce that hasn't been irradiated, sterilized, steam-treated, sprayed with preservative and fungicide then wrapped in clingfilm, it tends to go off when it's left lying around for too long. That makes it difficult to fly half-way round the world then keep on a supermarket shelf for two weeks, but I'm okay with that. I'd rather eat fresh food - worms, soil, bruises, blemishes and all. And if all the peppers are gone at the end of the week, I'll eat something else.
So, when I've got peppers, I've usually got them in abundance, but what to do with so many when most recipes call for one or at most two peppers? Well, you could try this salad.
Ingredients
4 green peppers
4 tomatoes
1 red onion
1 or 2 teaspoons of capers
A couple of pinches of dried oregano/marjoram
Olive oil
A splash of cider or wine vinegar
Salt
Cut the stalks out of the peppers, cut in half, deseed and cut each half into three or four wedges. Fry in a little olive oil in a covered pan over a low heat for about fifteen minutes.
While the peppers are cooking, cut the onion in half and slice the halves thinly, then leave the sliced onion to marinate in a mixture of the vinegar, oregano and chopped capers. Cut the tomatoes into wedges and when the peppers are ready, gently mix everything together with a little salt and a splash of olive oil. Serve warm or cold.
This salad will go with loads of different things, but just as a suggestion, how about serving with pasta and pesto, garlic bread and black olives.
And if you still have peppers left after this, just follow the link below for lots more pepper-rich recipes.