What to Do with All Those Roasted Red Bell Peppers What’s cooking? Roasted Red Pepper Aioli, Romesco Sauce, and Polenta Canapés

My husband is away on a golfing trip, so I’ve been on my own for a few days now. And even as I pull away from the curb after dropping him off at the airport, I’m already thinking about what I can cook while he’s gone. In what now has become something of a routine, I don’t even return home but head straight for my favorite supermarket to stock up on foods that (a) he doesn’t like, or (b) I want to play with in the absence of any pressure to fix dinner.

It gets a little weird after a while. The first night he was gone, I decided to try roasting broccolini (brushed with a bit of lemon olive oil and salt, baked at 375º for 15-20 minutes), and it was so good, I ate the entire bunch. (I broiled a piece of cod to go with it, so you don’t think I’m completely off center.) Then last night, I sautéed chicken gizzards for dinner, which I got around to at about 9 p.m.

I love chicken gizzards – and no, I’m not going to suggest that you try them. It’s a little like feasting on rubber bands. But my grandmother loved chicken gizzards, so I took it on faith that they were a delicacy; and for many true southerners, that remains the case. My friend, Diane, from Georgia, is the only person I know who will happily gnaw away with me on a basket of gizzards from Lucy’s Fried Chicken.

We all have those foods, don’t we? Akin to comfort food, those items we secretly love but don’t often admit to. Another of mine is a can of Campbell’s Pork & Beans – not heated, just straight from the can. You wouldn’t think the Kitchen Goddess capable of such blasphemous behavior, would you?

On to the Roasted Red Pepper Sauces

Remember these? Did you make some? If not, you'll want to now. Or buy some, and keep reading.

I did spend most of Saturday working on what I promised you, which is a couple of ways to use those delicious roasted red peppers from my antipasto post last week. You did make them, didn’t you? It’s not critical – the recipes here will still be good using the ones in a jar from the grocery store, but you really should at least try roasting your own. It’ll take a couple of hours, but the process is easy and the result is a stash of this condiment that’s amazingly flexible. Also, the ones you roast and jar on your own are waaaay better in delivering a smoky/sweet red bell pepper flavor.

Kitchen Goddess note: The grocery store peppers in a jar will most likely be packed in a brine. If you use them, be sure to rinse them and blot them to remove the brine. Huffington Post did a recent taste test of 13 brands, which you can check out here.

So here’s what we have today, and both are as easy and simple to make as you can imagine – no cooking required:

■ Roasted Red Pepper Aioli – Although the name comes from the Provençal words for garlic and oil, aioli is more of an emulsion like mayo, though not as thick. This version doesn’t need any extra garlic, as the peppers are already flavored with it. In addition to the smoky sweetness from the peppers, the sauce gets a tangy tweak from the mustard and lemon juice. Served cold, it’s great as a dipping sauce for crudité or cold shrimp, and it often accompanies cooked seafood like crab cakes, fried clams or fried calamari. Use it as a sandwich spread, a dressing for a pasta salad, or even as a sauce for grilled chicken or flank steak.

■Romesco Sauce – This nut- and red pepper-based sauce comes from the Catalonia region of Spain. I made my version with almonds, but you could substitute pignoli nuts or hazelnuts, or use a mixture of almonds and hazelnuts. I had only plain, slivered almonds, so I toasted them under the broiler and added an extra bit of salt to compensate for the call for “roasted salted almonds.” The nuts give the sauce a creaminess that works really well with the peppers. This sauce – served hot – is great on fish or pasta (choose a shape like fusilli, with some nooks and crannies) or polenta, and can even be cooked into the polenta (a.k.a. grits, y’all). I took polenta squares with dollops of Romesco (at room temp) to a dinner party and got excellent reviews all around.

Roasted Red Pepper Aioli

Adapted from epicurious.com

Makes about 2 cups.

2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons lemon juice
6 ounces roasted red peppers
½ cup goo quality olive oil
½ cup grapeseed oil*
1½ teaspoons salt
4 good grinds black pepper
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Combine egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice, and red peppers in the bowl of a food processor. Purée 30 seconds, then with the machine running, add the grapeseed oil in a slow, steady stream, then the olive oil in the same manner. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne and pulse briefly to mix.

*Kitchen Goddess note about grapeseed oil: This oil has a clean, light taste and a high polyunsaturated fat content. It adds almost no flavor, and thus keeps the aioli from tasting too much like olive oil. If you don’t have grapeseed oil, use canola oil. 

Romesco Sauce

Adapted from Gourmet magazine, March 2006

Makes about 2 cups.

7 ounces roasted red peppers, blotted with paper towels to remove marinade or brine, depending on whether your peppers are homemade or purchased
1 slice white sandwich bread, toasted on both sides
¼ cup roasted salted almonds (not smoked), or 2 tablespoons almonds plus 2 tablespoons roasted hazelnuts
1 large clove roasted garlic (or plain if you don’t have the roasted kind – and by the way, why is there no roasted garlic in your fridge?)
½ cup good quality chicken broth
¼ cup good quality olive oil
1 teaspoon Sherry
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper or ¼ teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes, or to taste

Tear the toast into pieces and combine in a blender with the remaining ingredients. Purée until smooth, about 2 minutes.

You will want to heat the sauce if you are serving it over pasta or polenta, and it’s an excellent idea to top the dish with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

And now for the Polenta Canapés with Romesco ...

I tried to get these to be nicely spread out on the plate, but the undersides are a bit moist, so they kept sliding toward the center like amoeba trying to attach to each other. Next time, I'll use a flatter plate.

Back in November, I posted a lovely recipe for Creamy Polenta. The method below uses the same ingredients, requires more constant attention, but takes half the time. Your choice. Leave out the butter if you’re planning to serve it in squares, canapé-style.

Creamy Polenta

Serves 6

2 cups milk
2 cups good quality chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup polenta (not quick-cooking) or yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Combine the milk, broth, and salt in a 3-quart heavy saucepan, and bring to a boil. Add the polenta in a fine stream, whisking to keep clumps from forming. Reduce the heat to whatever level allows the polenta to simmer, and cook, stirring frequently with a long-handled wooden spoon, for 20-25 minutes, or until the texture is no longer grainy. (The mixture will resemble a lava pit as it bubbles, and that long-handled spoon will keep you from getting burned.) Toward the end, you may want to add a couple of tablespoons of water if the mixture is stiff but still al dente. Once the polenta is creamy, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter until smooth. Serve immediately. Remember to leave out the butter if you are serving it canapé-style.

For main-course polenta: Polenta begins to congeal within 10 minutes as it starts to cool. If you are serving it in bowls but don’t plan to serve it immediately, pour over a thin film of milk to cover the top of the polenta, put a lid on the pan, and turn your heat to the lowest possible setting (or let the pan sit on the warm stovetop) until you are ready to eat. Then just before serving, turn up the heat slightly and whisk the milk well into the polenta until smooth.

For canapé-style polenta: Pour the cooked polenta (to a height of ½ inch) into a lightly greased quarter-sheet baking pan (9 x 13 inches) and let it sit for 30-40 minutes. Cut into squares no larger than 2 inches, and transfer the squares to a large rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Squares can be covered with cellophane wrap and refrigerated at this point for several hours or even overnight. Re-heat them 10-15 minutes in a 350º oven.

When you are ready to serve, brush the tops lightly with olive oil. Set oven to broil, and toast squares until

they are just beginning to brown. Remove from the oven and top each with a dollop of Romesco sauce.

Kitchen Goddess note: Extra polenta squares – without the sauce – can be frozen for the next time you have to produce an hors d’oeuvre on a moment’s notice. Re-heat 10-15 minutes in a 350º oven.

A Little Something from Your Auntie Pasto What’s cooking? Roasted Red Peppers and Sausage-Stuffed Dates

Kitchen Goddess note: Roasted red bell peppers is only the first half of this post; the rest of what constituted my gourmet antipasto, including the recipe for those dynamite stuffed dates, follows the recipe for the peppers.

Another gourmet group dinner haunted me this month. The theme this time was Italian, and our assignment was the appetizer course. Which should have been easy, right? Antipasto. In Italian, the word “antipasto” literally means “before the meal.” And I even had the authentic set of dishes used to serve it. But what would go into a “gourmet” version? I needed it to be more than a bunch of things I bought ready-made. I needed it to be special.

The ingredients for an antipasto platter (plural is “antipasti,” though when or how you’d use that formulation is beyond me) would fill a book on their own. From what I've read in a ridiculous number of Google searches, here’s a summary of sorts:

■ Cured meats (pepperoni, prosciutto, soppressata, salami,...)
■ Pickled mushrooms and vegetables in oil and/or vinegar: artichoke hearts, asparagus, peperoncini (unrelated to pepperoni, these are little pale yellow peppers that come in jars, pickled)...
■ Olives
■ Anchovies
■ Italian cheeses: provolone, mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, ricotta, goat cheese
■ Fruits: chunks of fresh melon (cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon), figs (dried or fresh), dates
■ Roasted nuts
■ Roasted red peppers

In short, food from Italy. Well now, that’s helpful, I said to myself.

Something about the number of combinations and permutations made me feel like I was back in my college probability class, and the probability was that I’d drive myself crazy figuring it out. So I used my gourmet “shout out”: I called my friend Barbara, who is the closest combination I know of (1) Italian heritage, (2) a great cook, and (3) a good enough friend that she wouldn’t mind if I called and whined about my dilemma. (She's also a very talented interior designer, with a website here.)

“First,” she said, “you have to have roasted peppers.”

“But I don’t like roasted peppers,” I whimpered. “And the times I’ve tried, that business of steaming them in a paper bag then peeling off the skin just made me crazy.”

“The reason you don’t like them,” she countered, “is that you’ve never had mine. And I have a much better way of cooking and peeling them.”

She was right on both counts. Turns out she halves the peppers, then marinates them before she cooks them on the grill. Grilling them on both sides (rather than whole, which most recipes dictate) induces the halves to flatten out, which makes the skins easier to peel off. It also introduces that lovely roasted flavor to the inside of the peppers. Once she gets the skins off, she marinates them again. The result is completely delicious – tender, smoky, slightly sweet yet suffused with the herb-and-garlic flavors in the final marinade. None of that briney taste you get with the ones in the jars. I’ll confess it was a bit of a project, but there’s nothing hard about it, and I now have plenty for other uses:

■ Stir chopped into scrambled eggs or a frittata;
■ Add chopped to pasta with sautéed onion, roasted tomatoes, and spicy Italian sausage;
■ Loosely puréed with olive oil, basil, cream, sautéed onions and garlic for a great pasta sauce;
■ Best of all, puréed with mayo, lemon juice, garlic, and some olive oil to make an aioli sauce that’s great as a condiment for grilled shrimp, crab cakes, fish, or chicken, or as a dip for veggies.

Kitchen Goddess note: I am now so dying to make the pasta sauce and the aioli that I will get you some recipes next week. Get busy and roast some peppers, so you’ll be ready.

Roasted Red Bell Peppers

Makes 1½ quarts, but you can easily halve the recipe if you want.

For the vinaigrette:
½ cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup good olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped (or, for extra flavor, one clove of roasted garlic – You have some in the fridge, don’t you?)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

For the peppers:
8 red bell peppers
12-15 cloves garlic, sliced
6 sprigs rosemary, cut in half
6 sprigs thyme, cut in half
olive oil, as needed

special equipment: one 1-quart mason jar plus one 1-pint mason jar, or 3 one-pint mason jars

1. Mix the marinade: Purée the vinaigrette ingredients and reserve in a jar or other pourable container.

2. Prepare the peppers for grilling: Halve the peppers, removing stems and seeds. Cut out the soft whitish interior ribs. Put the prepared pepper halves into a large bowl and pour about ¼ cup of the marinade over them. With your hands, slather the peppers inside and out with the marinade. Let the peppers sit for at least 15 minutes at room temperature, or up to a day in the fridge. (If you put the peppers overnight in the fridge, let them come to room temperature before grilling).

Notice the cuts I made that make it easier to flatten them while grilling.

3. Grilling the peppers: Preheat your grill to medium-high. Before grilling, make small (1-inch) cuts up the curvy ends, to allow the halves to flatten out as they cook. Grill both sides of the peppers for a total of 15-20 minutes – 5-7 minutes on the insides, the rest of the time on the outsides. The goal is to get the outsides about 70% charred.

You can see how the skin pulls away from the flesh, even on the lower left, which could use a bit more char.

4. Finishing the peppers: Let the grilled peppers cool a bit, then lay them on a cutting board, blackened side up, and with a paring knife, scrape or peel the skin off, removing as much of the char as you can. Slice the skinned peppers into strips about an inch wide. (They’ll be delicious now, but go through the next step anyhow.)

5. In the bottom of your mason jars, pour 2-3 tablespoons of the remaining marinade. Toss in a couple of cloves-worth of the sliced garlic, add about an inch of peppers and some of the herbs. Continue layering the jar with marinade, garlic, peppers, and herbs. If you run out of marinade (and you will), add plain olive oil. Close the jars and turn them up and down to thoroughly mix the marinade with the other ingredients. Store in the refrigerator for a day or up to 3 weeks.

In Praise of Bell Peppers: Remember that red bell peppers are sweet, not hot, nor acidic like green bell peppers. Moreover, these lovely orbs are a great source of Vitamin E as well as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients. Choose peppers that have a deep coloring, smooth skin without blemishes, and feel heavy for their size. The shape is not important.

The Complete Antipasto

Now that I had the roasted red peppers, what else would go on the antipasto?

I used as much as I could of homemade items, and I’ve included links here to the posts where you’ll find the tomato confit and the ricotta (that post also has instructions for the bruschetta). Sort of like the “something old, something new, etc.”, the goal should be to have a range of color, flavor, and texture.

■ Asparagus (roasted at 400º for 10 minutes), wrapped in half slices of prosciutto, for my cured meat and my green veggie.

■ A mix of Italian olives (Castelvetranos and black and green Cerignolas), for color and texture.

■ Sticks of Parmigiano-Reggiano with a plastic butter cup of fig jam to spread on it, for my hard cheese and something sweet.

■ Homemade ricotta cheese with herbs, for a soft cheese and the herbs.

■ Red and yellow cherry tomato confit, for color and because it goes well with the ricotta on bruschetta.

■ The perfect roasted red peppers, again for color and to pair with the ricotta on bruschetta.

■ Medjool dates stuffed with spicy Italian sausage, wrapped in bacon, and baked. I wanted something that would be served warm, and these offered the additional something sweet with meat. OMG – what a taste.

■ Separately, a basket of bruschetta (also called crostini – thin slices of toasted baguette, brushed with olive oil and rubbed with garlic), for the ricotta topped with either roasted red peppers or tomato confit.

And now, since I know you’re drooling over just the thought of those stuffed dates, here’s how to have some of your own.

Sausage-Stuffed Dates

Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis on FoodNetwork.com.

1 package seeded medjool dates (about 20)
2 links hot Italian sausage (raw)
10 slices bacon, halved
toothpicks

Preheat oven to 400º. Line a baking pan with baker’s parchment.

Remove the sausage from its casing. Pry open each date along the line where the seed was removed, and stuff enough sausage into the date to fill the interior (1-2 teaspoons). You should use enough sausage that the date no longer closes completely. Wrap a half slice of bacon around the stuffed date and secure with a toothpick. Place the finished dates on the baking sheet.

Bake the dates for 12-15 minutes, then turn them over and bake another 12-15 minutes, until the bacon looks crisp. Makes 20.

* * *

One Final Thought

You don't have to have a set of antipasto dishes to make an attractive antipasto spread. I got this set of Chinese soup bowls at a garage sale and recreated all but the stuffed dates for an alternate presentation. (We ate every last one of those delicious dates.)