Playing with fire

You know you did it when you were a kid and you probably miss doing it. So here I am to give you a reason to do it again. Play with FIRE! This little technique (or 2 really, I’ll give you 2 ways to do this) will help you bring another layer of flavor to your soups, sandwiches, salads, pastas, and pretty much anything else you are making that calls for peppers.

We are talking fire roasting today. Normally, I use red bells and jalapeños for fire roasting but you can use this technique for almost any pepper. Not only does this draw out more flavors from your peppers but it will also increase the shelf life, significantly.

Technique #1 requires a gas stove or a grill with an open flame. This is so simple that you will be doing this all of the time. Whenever I buy peppers I grab a few extras just to roast. Ok, enough chitter-chatter.

Turn on a burner to medium high and place your pepper directly on the fire (I repeat, directly on the fire, you need no pan). Allow the pepper to sit on the fire until it starts to char. At this point I like to turn my peppers so that the charring and cooking processes are even and slow. Some of you may differ in your approach and may allow your pepper to get completely black on one side before turning and that is perfectly legit as well. But now back to my way! Continue to turn your peppers until they are almost completely black, and then transfer them to a bowl to cool. The flesh of the peppers will continue to cook during the cooling process, this makes for even more tender flesh. This process makes the skin loose and fairly easy to remove. When removing I use a peeler to make quick work of it all. I also remove the stems and guts after peeling.

Technique #2 is for you poor, poor souls out there with electric stoves. Alright, I’ll cut you some slack you are only poor, poor souls for the purpose of this post and only because I prefer the open fire roasting. I’m biased, what can I say? But I’ll help you anyway.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place your peppers on a cookie sheet and drizzle with a little oil to coat (vegetable or canola oil is best here). Cook them until the skins are blistered and darkened. When the skins start to blister turn the peppers over and return to the oven. Remove, cool, and peel. Don’t forget to remove the stems and seeds. A major benefit of oven roasting is that you can do garlic right along with you peppers. Trim the stem side of the head of garlic down about a ¼” inch and drizzle with some EVOO. Wrap the garlic in aluminum foil and put it on the cookie sheet right along with those peppers. Yum!

Storage is the same regardless of which technique you use from above. I place the peppers into an air tight container and liberally spread some love in the form of EVOO. You’ll want to give them a good coating, but they do not need to be completely submerged in the oil, and toss them into the fridge. Same for the garlic and you get to decide if you want them to fuse in the same container or if you want to keep them separate. Both are amazing choices! 

And the finished product (having used technique #1)