A slow-cooked, summery, tomato-and-pepper stew that’s just made to be served at room temperature with fat pork sausages
Stored well, some seeds can last centuries, apparently. I am certain that sitting for four years upright in a box with postcards, bank statements and business cards, and under a lamp, isn’t good storage. But, like the business cards I may need one day, I can’t throw away the basil, courgette, thyme and red pepper seeds, or get around to planting them. So they sit, waiting, their corners getting knocked into dog ears. They don’t go unnoticed; the packet that catches my eye most is peperone rosso di Cuneo, which has on it a photograph of a pepper so red, it seems to have black stripes; it’s also square, like a weightlifter’s jaw. The packet promises seeds of a vigorous, gourmet variety producing large fruits with firm, exceptionally thick flesh and an intense, sweet flavour. Every time I read this, I want to eat peppers, to crunch on raw strips. Also to go for a swim, so my flesh is as firm and vigorous as a pepper from Cuneo (which, incidentally, means “wedge”), a city and a commune in south-west Piedmont.
Cultivation of the cuneo pepper is relatively recent, dating to the early 1900s, the result of an affair between a local variety and the large, lobed one from farther south. It may be recent, but it’s now established and responsible for some of the most tempting red and yellow pepper recipes, especially antipasti and sauces. I have bookmarks everywhere. Antipasti di peperoni – softly stewed peppers with anchovies. Bagnet ross, a sauce made with red peppers, tomatoes, onions, vinegar, anchovies and mustard seeds, to serve with meats or hard-boiled eggs. Cipollata rossa Monferrina made with soft robiola cheese and pepper for spreading on toast; tongue with sweet-and-sour pepper sauce; pickled peppers; and three sorts of peperonata, one with sausages, which is this week’s recipe, from a Slow Food-produced book called Osteria: 1,000 Generous and Simple Recipes from Italy’s Best Local Restaurants and a chef called Pier Antonio Cucchietti, from Stroppo in Cuneo. Of course, the peppers can come from anywhere, and you need two red and two yellow. When picking peppers, Jane Grigson suggests they should be smooth and slick, with a glossy brightness. Good advice, but I have also made this with older, wrinkled peppers, and it was great.
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