Recipes with peppers

The sweet pepper is a chilli domesticated in Central America and then bred, on the other side of the Atlantic, to lose its heat and keep its scent. It works as a vegetable rather than a spice: it brings water, sugar and a green bitterness that gives a dish structure without taking it over.

Two schools stand clearly apart. The fire school chars the skin off and keeps only the smoky flesh: Catalan escalivada, Tunisian slata mechouia, Moroccan taktouka and Syrian muhammara all depend on that pass through the flame. The simmering school lets it melt raw into oil with onion and tomato: Hungarian lecsó, pisto manchego, Niçois ratatouille, shakshuka and Romanian zacuscă all build a pliable base from it. Elsewhere it supplies colour and background alone, as in Nigerian jollof rice or Brazilian moqueca.

If you are roasting peppers, shut them in a covered bowl for ten minutes as they come out of the oven: the steam lifts the skin, which then peels off by hand without tearing the flesh. Do not rinse them clean under the tap — you would wash away the juices that carry the flavour. For a slow-cooked dish, strip out the white inner membrane: that, rather than the skin, holds the most persistent bitterness.