As much as anything this is a ‘reminder to self’! There are so many wonderful vegetables available in the middle of summer that with or without a recipe we should grab and use them. Here is a perfect example of that – we had a few extra tomatoes and French beans from the garden. We had also bought a few more peppers than normal as they had been on offer so they were abundant too. So this ‘Grab some Veg’ dish is based on our piperade recipe, which you can find here. Piperade is a Basque dish from the southwest part of France. It takes its name from the local word for pepper — pipèr. Piperade is really a combination of the peppers with onion, garlic and tomatoes. This is seasoned with ground black pepper, cayenne pepper or in the form we have found works for us piment d’espelette, a mild chilli pepper from the Basque region. For this dish we added a few more tomatoes as we had a lot. The extra tomatoes also worked well as we were adding a large handful of French beans which have also been very prolific this year.
The piperade part of the dish was cooked as in the recipe which you can find here. The real difference here was that we prepared the beans, cutting them into about 6cm lengths and then parboiling them for around 2 minutes. These were added to the piperade at the same time as the tomatoes and the piperade was finished as usual.
Piperade itself is a very versatile commodity but it also serves as a perfect base for adding other vegetables as we have here with our excess of French beans!
This made a great lunch, served on some toasted olive bread finished with some Tuscan Olive Oil
Piperade and French Beans
Sautéed pepper strips in an onion, garlic and tomato sauce
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, red or white
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 or 2 red Romano Peppers
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 3 tomatoes
- A handful of French beans cut tint 6cm lengths
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- A sprinkle of Piment d’Espelette (or freshly ground black pepper, or a little cayenne pepper
Directions
- Step 1 Peel and quarter the onion and cut into fine slices at right angles to the first cuts. Chop the garlic finely. Then cut the peppers lengthways. Remove the stalk, core, seeds and any attached white membrane. Cut the peppers lengthways into narrow strips around 10cm long and about half a centimetre wide.
- Step 2 If cooking on the Big Green Egg set up initially for direct cooking
- Step 3 Heat a little olive oil in a pan add the the onions and cook for 10 minutes or so till they soften and caramelised a little. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes more. Add the sliced peppers and gently sauté until the peppers become tender, about 10 minutes. Stir from time to time. Whilst the peppers are cooking, chop the tomatoes into 1cm cubes and parboil the beans for 2-3 minutes and then add to the pan once the peppers are tender. Reduce the heat (or put the platesetter in place and cook indirect) and cook for another 15-20 minutes until the tomatoes form a lovely slightly sticky sauce. Season with a little salt and pepper and a sprinkle of Piment d’Espelette or cayenne pepper
