Roasting Peppers : Tutorial

I started to post a pasta recipe that used red roasted peppers, and realized, since the roasting itself is so much fun, that it might be best to post a precursor tutorial on the roasting bell peppers and then follow up with some recipes to use up the finished product.

When I roast peppers, I put them directly on the burner of our cooktop.

However, if you don't have a gas cooktop, you can use your grill.  Egads!  No way!  It is too cold and snowy out there right now and I have on flip flops.

Alternatively, if you don't have a gas cooktop and your grill is snowed in, you can get out your kitchen torch.

The flame on this baby will roast a pepper nicely.  Failing all that, if you must, use your broiler.  To use the broiler, cut your pepper in half, push it flat, skin side up, on a cookie sheet and scorch 'em. 

But, back to my preferred method, if you have a gas cooktop, just lay it right over the flame.  See that nice sweat building up on the top?  It is starting to roast.

When it is completely black, use your tongs (not you hands, I've tried that) to rotate it a quarter turn.  Yes, the skin on this side is actually a little bit on fire, but that won't hurt it a bit.

Keep rotating until the entire pepper is nice and black

And then pop it off the flame and seal it in a ziplock bag.  Walk away for 10 minutes, or more, and when you come back

You will have a beautiful blackened pepper

which the skin will slough right off of when you run your hands over it.

Once the skin has been removed, you can rinse it under the faucet or you can just leave a bit of the black char on there.  It will add to the flavor.

Then lay it on your cutting board and cut out the stem, pulling out the seeds with it.

Cut the pepper in half and remove any remaining seeds. 

You can roast red, yellow, green, orange or purple peppers for a bright addition to so many dishes. Tomorrow, I'll follow up with at least one recipe to use them!