Slow roasted peppers

My favourite dish when working in a restaurant kitchen was peperonata – red and yellow peppers softened down slowly in a frying pan along with oil, garlic and onions until they almost melted. It was, as many good things are, time-consuming to make, so I wondered if one might achieve a similar result with oven cooking – and the answer is yes. With garlicky beans, this dish is perfect piled on to rounds of thickly sliced toasted bread.

Serves: 4
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 1 hour

• 5 vine tomatoes, quartered
• 1 red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 orange pepper, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 large sprig of fresh rosemary
• 1⁄2 – 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
• Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

BEANS

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1⁄2 clove of garlic, finely grated
• 1⁄2 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 1⁄2 – 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
• 1 x 400g tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1⁄2 lemon, zest only

TO SERVE

• Rounds of thickly sliced, toasted bread

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/gas 6.

Tip the tomatoes, peppers, oil, herbs, salt and pepper into a roasting tin large enough to hold everything in one layer, mix well, then transfer to the oven and roast for 50 minutes. If after half an hour it looks as though the peppers are catching a bit too quickly, turn the heat down a fraction.

Meanwhile, stir the extra virgin olive oil, garlic, chilli flakes, salt, cannellini beans and lemon zest together in a bowl and set aside. Once the peppers have had 50 minutes, stir through the beans, then turn the oven down to 160°C fan/180°C/gas 4 and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Taste and adjust the salt and pepper as needed, adding a little more olive oil if you wish, then remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs and serve piled on to toasted bread. This tastes even better the next day, so it’s well worth making in advance and reheating.

Extracted from: The Roasting Tin Around the World – Global One Dish Dinners by Rukmini Iyer (Square Peg). Photography by David Loftus.