Ingredient spotlight: piquillo peppers

I bought my first jar of piquillo peppers from a spanish food specialty store in Berkeley. Once I tried these peppers, I knew I’d be incorporating them into my cooking on a regular basis. Piquillo peppers are sweet red peppers from Spain that are roasted and sold in jars or cans. I usually buy my piquillo peppers packed in water, but they also come packed in olive oil. Piquillos taste similar to roasted red bell peppers, but with a more intense, slightly smoky flavor – I happen to think that they’re vastly superior.

My local grocery store carries piquillo peppers, they have them right next to the jars of regular roasted peppers. Trader Joe’s has them right now too, but I noticed that they’re imported from Peru rather than Spain, so I can’t vouch for the quality. You can also order them online. Unlike most jarred products, these peppers don’t have a very long shelf life. I usually end up freezing whatever I have left over after the jar has been open for a week.

You can use these peppers in any way that you would normally use your standard roasted red peppers. I like to put them in pasta, on pizza, or stuff them with a variety of fillings. One of my favorite preparations is to stuff the peppers with goat cheese, raisins and pine nuts. There’s no real recipe for this – I mix softened goat cheese with some toasted pine nuts, golden raisins that have been plumped in hot water, salt and pepper. If the mixture seems too thick, you can thin it slightly with a touch of milk or cream. I fill the peppers using a piping bag – you can use a spoon, but it’s a little messier. These are good at room temperature or just slightly warmed.

Another great way to use piquillo peppers is to make a marmalade. I use the marmalade for lamb chops, but it would also be great on pork or chicken.

Piquillo pepper marmalade

Makes 3-4 servings

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced

8 piquillo peppers, thinly sliced

1 clove of garlic, crushed

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 fresh rosemary sprig

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a pan at medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and browned, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the piquillo peppers, lemon zest, lemon juice and rosemary and cook for another 5-7 minutes. Add a little water if the pan gets too dry. Remove and discard the rosemary sprig. Stir in the vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Passover and a winner

The winner of the See's Candies gift certificate is Suzy!

I wanted to share some pictures from Passover with you. I hosted, and decided to go with a relatively simple menu - somehow most of the dishes ended up being adapted from Barefoot Contessa recipes. I didn't get pictures of everything, but here are some of the highlights.

This is a pretty traditional matzo ball soup. I took the idea of the fresh dill and parsley from Barefoot Contessa Parties.

I decided to splurge and go for rack of lamb as the main course. I used the recipe in Barefoot Contessa Parties which involves a crust of dijon mustard, fresh rosemary, balsamic vinegar, garlic and salt.

I boiled these baby yukon gold potatoes until tender, them flattened them under my palm and baked them with some olive oil, salt and pepper until crispy.

More of those delicious green green spring vegetables from Barefoot Contessa at Home.

This dessert was inspired by a meal I had at the restaurant Perbacco. I made meringue shells, which I filled with passion fruit curd. I put the meringues on a pool of raspberry sauce and garnished with fresh raspberries. The meringue and raspberry sauce recipes came from Barefoot in Paris. For the curd, I just substituted passion fruit puree for lemon juice in a lemon curd recipe.

I was really happy with this meal, everything came out about as well as could be expected.

Braised lamb shanks with shell bean ragout

Every September, my local grocery store stocks fresh cranberry beans for about two weeks. This year, I bought a few pounds which I then shelled, blanched and froze. This recipe from Sunday Suppers at Lucques is meant to be made in the summer to take advantage of fresh shell beans, but I froze my beans so that I could enjoy summery recipes even when it's cold outside.

The lamb shanks are marinated in olive oil, lemon zest, rosemary, garlic and thyme overnight. For the braise, the shanks are browned and cooked in a mixture of white wine, chicken stock, fennel, carrot onion and herbs at 325 degrees for about 2 and a half hours. The braising liquid is strained and reduced, and the shanks are toppped with a black olive tapenade. The shanks are served on a shell bean ragout.

For the ragout, I sauteed garlic, onion, shallot and thyme in some olive oil. The cooked beans are tossed in the onion mixture to coat and warm through, then finished with salt, pepper, opal basil and parsley. I used a combination of cooked cranberry beans, lima beans and wax beans. The original recipe called for haricots verts, but I thought the wax beans would make for a more colorful end result.

The final plating is a few scoops of shell bean ragout, topped with a lamb shank and a dollop of tapenade. I loved all the colors and textures of the beans, and the tapenade added a nice saltiness and depth of flavor to the lamb. I'm out of cranberry beans now, so I'll probably have to wait until next year to make this one again. That being said, you could probably get away with frozen lima beans and green beans if you didn't want to wait that long.

Lamb with pomegranate

When flipping through the latest issue of Bon Appetit, the beautiful picture of lamb with pomegranate caught my eye. I tore out the recipe because it looked like a good use for the bottle of pomegranate molasses that's been languishing in my fridge. I simplified the recipe a bit by using boneless lamb chunks, I think it saved a lot of time and energy. I served this dish over bulgur wheat instead of the couscous that the recipe calls for. The lamb comes out sweet and tangy from the pomegranate molasses with an exotic flavor from the spice blend. Fresh pomegranate arils and basil add a finishing touch. This was a fun and unique recipe - simple, but still elegant and delicious.

Grilled lamb chops with oregano vinaigrette and radish tzatziki

This recipe is from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life. I'm trying to make the most of what's left of this year's grilling season. Lamb chops (he calls for rib chops, I used shoulder chops) are simply seasoned with salt and pepper and seared on the grill. The hot lamb chops are topped with a vinaigrette of fresh oregano, garlic, red wine vinegar, honey, olive oil, salt and pepper. Radish tzatziki is a twist on an old favorite. The recipe uses ingredients that are fairly traditional, but instead of shredded cucumber, this sauce calls for finely grated radish. Make sure to squeeze all the moisture out of your radish before you put it in the sauce. I had no idea that so much bright pink juice would leak out of radishes when they're shredded! The combination of the smoky lamb, slightly sweet vinaigrette and tzatziki with the bite of radish was amazing. I will definitely be repeating this recipe in the near future.

Bobby Flay's oven roasted lamb shanks with roasted tomatoes and toasted orzo

A few months ago, I saw Bobby Flay make these lamb shanks on Boy Meets Grill. I just got around to trying the recipe, and it is fantastic. While the recipe isn't very labor intensive, the cooking time is fairly long for each of the components. Since I was making this on a weeknight, I roasted the tomatoes and garlic a day in advance. I ended up roasting the tomatoes and garlic at 300 degrees instead of 200 degrees - the tomatoes cooked for about 3 hours instead of 4.

While the sauce for the lamb shanks was reducing, I put the tomatoes back in the oven to warm them through. The orzo is delicious - toasting the orzo creates a complex flavor.

I used less oil than the recipe called for. I roasted the tomatoes and garlic with a coating of olive oil cooking spray, and browned the lamb shanks in a dry pan. I also didn't add the butter to finish the orzo - I meant to, but when I tasted the orzo I thought it was so good that it didn't need the butter. I also skimmed some of the fat and impurities from the sauce while it was reducing.

I highly recommend this recipe, just plan to make it on a day when you know you'll be at home. The results are worth the effort!

Meat and potatoes

Tonight we had roasted leg of lamb and saffron potatoes. I covered the leg of lamb in mint pesto, salt and pepper and roasted it at 400 degrees until my meat thermometer registered at medium.

Saffron potatoes are a really simple and colorful way to liven up dinner. Bring water to a boil in a pot. Add salt and a pinch of crushed saffron threads. Let the water continue to boil for at least 5 minutes so that the saffron can infuse the water. Cut some fingerling, red, white or gold potatoes into chunks. Add the potatoes to the pot and boil for about 15 minutes or until tender. Drain, sprinkle with kosher or sea salt and serve. If desired, garnish with chopped herbs or paprika.

I used fingerling potatoes and topped them with fleur de sel.