Baked Red Peppers for the Freezer

This article was prepared for the benefit of the foreign readers of the blog.

This is a guide to make Baked Red Peppers as a preserve.

One can either freeze them in small bags or can them in jars, but we do not know the method for the latter, so we will stay with the former.

The red peppers used, come for a very thick kind of banana peppers probably found only in the northern part of Greece. They are as thick as the bell peppers found all over the world, so you can try it with these.

The method consists of baking them to separate the skin and develop the flavor.

Then you skin and freeze them.

The Process In Detail

There are two ways to prepare them.

Either you bake the peppers as is, and then mess around with removing the skin AND seeds, or you can follow our method of.

After rinsing the peppers you pluck the stem and seeds out this way:

You hold the stem with your index finger and drive the stems base inwards with your thumb. Then you pull out with your index finger. this will remove stem and seed cone in one part most of the times.

Then you throw the peppers in a big Tupperware container with water.

Slosh them some and what remained of the seeds will sink down and you are left with clean peppers and a tub of water you can strain to get the seeds out easy.

Then it is time to bake them.

One can use the kitchen stove grill, but it is far better to grill them on the BBQ outside till black!

In fact if you BBQ a lot, you can do the peppers in small batches after the main course using the leftover heat of the dying coals, letting them cook themselves while you take your meal.

From a point on, the skin will start to separate by its own, and the more you grill them the easier it will come off, but there are methods to fasten the process.

You either shock the skin off by throwing the steam-hot peppers in cold water, or you place the hot peppers in a bag and let it rest for an hour or more.

This second method will cook the peppers some more, releasing the skin further, but you will get much softer ones.

Properly baked peppers should be "Al Dente"

The skinning process is a bit tedious but becomes much more easier with our method of preparation. One more trick to employ is to hold the soften pepper flat on your hand and start peeling from its point backwards.

One more convenience is to use a medium to large freezer bag and lay the peppers in a disk an inch thick. That makes for faster thawing than a ball of, and if you want a smaller amount you just break the disk off on the edge of your counter top.

To consume you let them thaw, and make a salad adding salt, olive oil and a zest of vinegar. A step further is adding feta crumbs.

This could be the preppers' special salad 'cos the pepper goes so well with any MRE and dehydrated food!

Alternatively you can mash the peppers and substitute part of the tomato in your pizza or pasta sauce!

We will leave you with one more red peppers preserve. A canned sauce.

Canned Red Pepper Source

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