Sweet Red Pepper Salad
This week’s Made in Adana Recipe is another easy, healthy dish, that could really impress. It’s called Sweet Red Pepper Salad and is from page 144 of the “I Need Help in Turkey Cookbook”.
I don’t know what it is about red peppers. In America, it always seems that red bell peppers have this amazing surcharge for color. It’s like they sell the green ones for $1/pound and the red ones for $1 each. Here in Adana, there are almost always great red peppers at a very reasonable price. Today’s recipe takes advantage of that.
Here’s how you make it.
Step 1: Take 6 medium sized sweet red peppers and throw them under the broiler in your oven. If you have a grill, you could throw them on the grill instead. Turn them every three minutes until the outer skins are black and split, but not burned too bad. Note that with these Turkish peppers, it’s really easy to burn the skin deeply enough that you can’t get it off of the pepper. Be careful.
Step 2: take the peppers out of the oven and wrap them in newspaper on the countertop. Leave to cool for 15 minutes or more. The steam inside the newspaper is supposed to loosen the skins.
Step 3: While the peppers are cooling, mix the dressing in a bowl:
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
2-5 cloves of garlic minced
½ tsp. dried orageno (or Italian seasoning mix)
½ tsp. salt
Step 4: Peel the skins off of the peppers. This is the one part I hate, I’m not good at this. As you peel the skins, remove the seeds and the stems. This is a messy job.
Step 5: Cut the cleaned peppers into quarter inch strips.
Step 6: Mix the dressing with the peppers in the bowl. Cover and put in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
This can be served with bread, on top of a chicken breast or mixed in with a green salad. I like it on a piece of toast with a slice of Turkish Beyaz Penir (that’s Feta Cheese in English). I think this would make an outstanding side dish or appetizer. Who knows, I might even serve it at the upcoming Turkish Foods Cooking seminar as an appetizer!
Made in Adana: is a collection of recipes posted every Wednesday for wonderful foods that can be made with ingredients purchased right here in Adana (or anywhere in Turkey.) Most recipes are from the “Help I’m In Turkey Cookbook” which I hope to have available here soon.
