Tuna whizzed into a paste with anchovies, capers, parsley, olive oil, then spread on toast and topped with marinated roast peppers: if that doesn’t ring your bell, what will?
In Calabria there is a particular variety of peperoncino that is more or less the size of a small, slightly flattened plum, with postbox-red, crisp, slightly piquant flesh. While the flesh makes your mouth feel warm, the tiny seeds have real heat that at first doesn’t seem so intense, until it builds and builds, and then you touch your contact lens. It’s the same with the pithy veins, so for certain preparations both are scooped out. When they are stuffed, for example, for which the seedless, hollow shells are boiled briefly in water and red-wine vinegar, then drained, before being filled with a pounded mixture of tuna, anchovies and capers, and finally, covered with olive oil.
I remember seeing jars of peperoncini piccanti ripieni di tonno, alici e capperi in shops, and while I knew they were edible and most likely delicious, I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that the red shells and white filling seemed like storybook mushrooms or psychedelic specimens. It was at the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school, though, when an oval plate of them was brought out before dinner, that I discovered that the little, briefly pickled peppers stuffed with salty fish are one of the tastiest things. The other thing about them is they are often slightly too big to eat in one mouthful, but don’t try and bite them in half because the filling will end up on your shoe. To avoid a similar risk with this week’s recipe, which is inspired by the storybook peperoncini, decide if you want to make the squares of toast one bite, or two.
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