This a second antipasto dish using capsicums and anchovies ... perfect with crusty bread and wine and quite different to Peperoni con Alici a Capperi.
One of my favourite ways of socialising is sitting around a picnic table on the back lawn with sea as a backdrop, a glass of wine, a bunch of old friends and yummy things to eat. A couple of gorgeous cheeses, salty nuts, a firm pear, smoked salmon or chicken, garlicky olives and roasted red peppers all seem to me to be the food of the Gods. Horowhenua is a strong horticultural area and we are blessed to be able to buy gorgeous, picked daily, vegetables direct from the grower ... including stunning red peppers at the right time of year. My kids eat them like apples! I make a couple of antipasto dishes including Peperoni Alla Piemontese. This recipe consists of chargrilled red peppers (capsicums) rolled up with anchovies and capers - gorgeous combination.
Cut each pepper into 6 or 8 length-wise strips (depending on the size of the peppers). Place a chopped anchovy fillet and a few capers on each slice then roll up into a small sausage and arrange into a shallow dish. Pour the marinade over and garnish with a tiny sprinkling of parsley, or grated lemon rind, a grinding of black pepper or a few fresh thyme leaves. Serve with bread to sop up the lovely oil.
One Christmas Day my mate Dave rang me from some Balkan hell-hole, Pristina I think, and I started crying over some bloke who'd stood me up the night before (turns out his Mother had been rushed to hospital with a heart attack). Anyway one thing led to another and Dave, who was quite distressed that I was crying, suggested that what I needed was a nice week in Naples and why didn't I pop over and he'd meet me there. Lack of money was no problem - he would pay.
So 8 days later I found myself in Rome, exploring on foot, feasting my eyes and soul on the glorious churches and galleries. I truly didn't have much money at all and I used to squirrel away a spare bread roll from the Youth Hostel breakfast buffet to get me through the day. On the last day I had to choose between visiting the Colosseum or buying a slice of pizza for tea. The Colosseum won - of course.
That evening I hopped on a train to Naples, I'd bought the ticket when I'd arrived, and made my way to the prearranged 'hotel', a particularly seedy one with very dodgy stains on the wallpaper, run by a a pair of old ladies with hairy legs and men's socks. And then I got an email from Dave; he was stuck in Kosovo, snowed in and didn't know when he would be able to get over..... so I went for a walk. And you know what, sometimes the universe just provides because I found a large note in the gutter and had enough money for the few days until Dave managed to hitch a ride over with the Italian army.
Dave is a kindred soul; we both love food and drink and it was a glorious week in Naples. I ordered this dish in a little trattoria across the street from our 'hotel' and it was breathtakingly, heartbreakingly, divine.
PS I foolishly entered into an agreement that in exchange for the trip of a lifetime to Naples, which cost Dave an enormous amount of money because we both had a very good time and we drank a lot of laphroaig, I would provide him with a lifetime of wine.....
Don't buy bottled pasta sauce ever again. Just don't do it. It takes about 15 minutes to make this simply gorgeous sauce - and it works just fine with plain tinned tomatoes. Don't be tempted to buy flavoured tomatoes or to dress this up with too many extra flavours or ingredients - its big enough on its own.
