Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

I barely published the Eggplant Salad post and my friends asked me: “next is the Grilled Pepper Salad, yes?”
It’s so easy to make that I didn’t even think about it, but I don’t want to let my friends down, so here it is.

First of all, any kind of pepper can be roasted. Sweet, round, flat, pointy, hot, red, green, yellow, if you have it, you can roast it. How to roast it, though, is another story, a slightly familiar story if you read the eggplant salad post.

The absolute best and traditional way is on a wood-burning stove. You can still find this way in the countryside and I was lucky enough to find it in a small village.

You can also use a grill, gas or charcoal, or a griddle on the stove – the idea is the same: roast over high heat and be very careful, once roasted on one side the other sides will take way less time to get done. The difference between a perfectly roasted pepper and a burnt one is the time it takes you to drink half a’ beer. So don’t drink that beer and watch the peppers.

The recipe asks for 1 pepper per person, but nobody can eat only one, so get as many as you want and start roasting. Wash them, but don’t remove the stem or cut them in pieces.

Once the peppers are roasted, place them in a pot or a bowl, sprinkle them with salt and place a lid on. Let them stay at least 20 minutes, preferably until they cool down.

During this time you can prepare the vinaigrette (the quantities are approximate):

• 3(ish) tbsp olive oil
• 2(ish) tbsp vinegar(any white or wine vinegar)
• thin slices of garlic (if so wanted)
• don’t add salt (remember you sprinkled ’em with salt in the bowl)
• In a small bowl mix them all together and let them sit

Going back to the peppers, now that they have cooled down, take them one by one out of the pot. Hold’em by the stem and start peeling the skin off by pinching and pulling and sometimes rubbing. Use some water if the skin is too stubborn. Try to remove all the traces of blackness (charred skin). While doing that some of the peppers will break and the juices will flow: I always try not to waste the juice as it has a very specific, great taste. It will taste great mixed with the vinaigrette. If you want you can leave the stem and seeds on or you can remove them. It’s only a matter of taste (and skill, if you can eat around the seeds).

Put everything into a bowl and refrigerate (my wife often skips this step, she goes straight to devouring the peppers). The salad can be served as a side to any meat, together with the eggplant salad, or by itself with a bit of feta.

Just when l was ready to publish the recipe, I was friendly reminded: DON’T FORGET THE AUDIENCE!

Which is very good practice since we, the ARCS Network, are trying to bring the Romanian traditions to our American friends (and not only). We live in a fast moving, busy world, so while the traditional Romanian recipe is kind of messy and time consuming (albeit delicious), I will share with you a quick(er) and clean(er) way of making the roasted pepper salad.

Broil the peppers on one of the broiler trays that each oven comes with. Check often (every 2-3 minutes), rotate (with tongs, you need the fingers for the eggplant salad) and, when evenly roasted, follow the same steps (cover, cool, clean, vinaigrette, dress, cool again, eat).

Final notes:

• if you realized that you roasted too many peppers, before dressing them, you can save some and freeze or can them (in oil) for 6 months or so; they will still be very good
• I mentioned that you can roast green peppers and already I can see a storm of comments coming: while they are not so sweet and tasty as the red, orange, or yellow ones, they are still decently good
• the hot peppers, if they are on the small side, do not attempt to peel of the skin
• many apologies for not having a photo with my roasted peppers: my wife was way too quick for me and ate them all – I forgot to tell her that those are for the blog pictures (her comment: “Oh, this is why you made only 4!”) and in order to avoid any copyright issues I use only my photos, so no photo for you
• LE: I made a new batch – below is the photo

Nothing is final if you have an editor like I do. He pointed out something like: “When will you write again about roasted peppers? Now that you’re doing this, tell America about Arizona and Mexican chili peppers.”

He had a point and he was almost right. Almost. New Mexico is also a huge chile producer and there are no “chili peppers”, but “chile peppers” (per Farmer Frank Martin, the plant whisperer and owner of Crooked Sky Farms). You know that July is almost over and there are only 2 months of oven-like temperatures left when, at the Gilbert Farmers Market (in my city), Saturday mornings smell like fire roasted chile peppers. Frank brings his professional tumbler roaster and for 3-4 hours his team is roastin’ and baggin’ and sellin’ and nobody, but nobody is minding the huge lines. These are long, green, pointy peppers, mild, medium, and hot. Any vendor that respects himself will clearly tell you which is which, otherwise you can lose your breath and your heart skips a couple of beats. If you have the opportunity, try them and if you find yourself in the Valley during summer or fall, make time and visit the above said Market.