Down Ridley Rd at the moment you can get about eight of these long green peppers for a pound. Amazing. I associate them with Turkish food usually and they would be wonderful fried up with garlic, cumin and olive oil and topped with yoghurt and a little sumac. However we also know that peppers of various forms are much loved in Szechuan. This is one of those mega simple combinations that really lack the necessary complexity to be considered a full on recipe. Just as they would be delicious fried with garlic and dressed with just olive oil and salt and pepper in an Italian style, all I did was fry them and give them a splash of vinegar and a dab of pickle. Simple. The flavours speak for themselves: stands to reason.
I used my new favourite - Wild Brake Pickle (飯掃光家常野蕨菜). Available (along with live eels last weekend) at the compact, excellent Yu Xiao in Dalston.
wild brake looks a bit like bracken
- peppers
- oil, Chinkiang vinegar, pickled vegetables or chilli
Fry the peppers. You need to achieve an appetising softness inside and a semi-blistered skin outside. Spots of blackness are desirable. These green peppers are spicy. I left the seeds in and they were fine.
Dress with vinegar and a touch of your favourite pickle. You could go for some preserved mustard tuber or maybe some salted chillies. Consume. Great as a side dish: for a whole meal just muddle a couple of eggs in with the peppers and serve with rice a a slug of soy sauce.
well tasty
Sunflower Food Galore is a brilliant food blog covering Chinese food and more. You can check their take on this dish - Stir fried blistered green chilli - Hu pe jian jiao - 虎皮尖椒.
This is a fabulous idea! I remember eating lots of stir fried green chillies with a bit of pork and those Turkish chillies must make a great substitute.
ReplyDeleteThanks Su-Lin, I nicked the idea from the Fuchsia Dunlop book actually, forgot to credit it!
ReplyDeleteThese Turkish ones seem perfect as they have a bit of heat but not OTT, allowing the sauce and vinegar to really work together...