Virtues of green bell peppers

COOK 'EM MORE

They provide a subtle hit of a bitter, fresher, cooler flavour, as well as more of a crunch. John Willoughby swears by the green bell peppers, elaborating on why he favours them so much.

Most cooks I know despise green bell peppers. They deride them as bitter, virtually inedible versions of their older, sweeter red or yellow or orange selves. Me? I love them.

But I admit that my reasons are as personal as culinary. My infatuation began in the small Iowa farming town where I grew up. The soil there was black. Not dark brown, black. Like licorice. And that old cliché that anything you stuck into the ground would grow? Completely true.

I know this because of my father’s enormous garden. Tucked away on the upper part of our lot, it held row after row of onions, tomatoes, Swiss chard, sweet corn. And of course, bell peppers. So on those long afternoons, when it seemed that nothing would ever happen in this little town where everyone knew everyone, we would sit silently on the ground, picking and eating fat green bell peppers like apples. Hot from the sun, almost lush but subtly bitter, they were curiously comforting, their crisp complexity somehow taking me to another place. 

Other cooks are welcome to banish green peppers from the plates. For me, they will always taste of the conflicted languor of those long summer days and the occasional comfort of small things. And really, what more can a vegetable do?But my appreciation of these peppers is not based just on nostalgia.

Over the years I’ve found that they have distinct culinary virtues. Instead of adding the sweetness of riper versions, they provide a subtle hit of a bitter, fresher, cooler flavour, as well as more of a crunch. You may even argue that they are more sophisticated than their gaudily coloured mature selves. Sweeter is always easier to like.

I am not the only one who thinks this way. In certain parts of the world, green bells demand respect. Chinese and Creole cooks, in particular, are fond of them. They’re a staple in moqueca, the Brazilian fish stew. But perhaps no one revels more in green peppers than cooks from Spain, particularly the Basque region.

So when I mentioned my love for them to Alex Raij, the Basque chef and owner (with her husband, Eder Montero) of Txikito and El Quinto Pino in Manhattan and La Vara in Brooklyn, I found a soulmate.

“I love green peppers so much,” she said. “They are great with salt cod and anchovies, both of which I use a lot. Plus, I love the liquor that comes out of them when they’re rested after being roasted or grilled. It has a really clean, lean pepper flavour.”

Alex uses this rare liquor in a dish of olive oil-poached cod that rests on a purée made from green bell peppers, a bit of onion and a single poblano, a mildly spicy relative of the bell. The finished fish is drizzled lightly with the liquor, perfectly integrating the two components. If any seafood dish can be described as simultaneously voluptuous and refreshing, it is this one.

Many traditional Basque recipes feature green peppers. Perhaps the most well known is piperade, in which green peppers, onions and tomatoes are simply sautéed together and flavoured with piment d’Espelette, a mild red chili from the Basque region of southern France.

Piperade can be a main dish (usually with the addition of ham), a side dish or a kind of condiment, my favourite use. It’s particularly nice with grilled chicken and fish.

But truly, if you have the land and the patience, the very best option is to grow your own peppers and eat them right off the plant. After a lapse of many years, I finally did this again last summer. And even in the urban surroundings of my present life, the clear, clean flavours of the sun-warmed peppers retained their curious power to comfort and inspire.