Recipe: Broiled Red Peppers

Broiled Red Peppers
rec.food.cooking/Gordon Hester/1990

I'm a big fan and user of broiled red peppers.

The method of blistering the skin over a burner works well if you're only doing a few. I buy dozens of red peppers from local organic farmers each year and broil them all at once. I do this either on my outdoor grill (charcoal) or under the broiler in my oven. Just turn them frequently. BTW, they really should LOOK burned to make it easy to remove the skin. As Scott notes, putting them in a bag after the skin is blistered helps make the skin come off easily (paper or plastic - I often put a damp paper towel in with them, which seems to help loosen the skin - I don't have any idea why).

I then freeze the peppers - usually by putting them on a baking sheet in the freezer first, so they don't all freeze together in a lump. This way I can take them out one at a time easily. I peel them by holding them under a trickle of cold water - the skin thaws first and just slides right off. (I use a not-too- sharp knife to sort of scrape off any part of the skin that is reluctant.) My experience is that freezing makes peppers even easier to peel by quite a lot - this applies to green chilies as well.

BTW, broiled red peppers are exactly what pimentos are - except that the ones you can get in a can or jar that are packed in water are MUCH less flavorful than ones you broil yourself. There are numerous varieties of red peppers - last summer I found a farmer who grows a French pimento that is long and thin, with fairly thick flesh, that has the best flavor I've found yet. The red "Holland" peppers you can get at supermarkets are fine, though (so are the yellow pones, for that matter.)

Oh, one other hint - I often peel more then I need, and lay out the extra flat (that is, split the pepper and remove the seeds so that it can be laid out in a single layer), wrap it in plastic wrap, put it in a bag, and freeze it flat. Then, when I want a bit I can just take it out, slice off what I want and put the rest back.

I'd suggest trying this even if you're not especially fond of red peppers - broiling them gives them a sweet, rich flavor that I find vastly superior to raw peppers, which I don't care for all that much.