Green and Red Pepper Salad

Submitted by justcallmetoni

"Peppers grown in abundance throughout the Mediterranean. This salad from Tunisia and Morroco uses them to their best advantage with roasting - a preparation that heightens their natural sweetness. You can serve this as a first course salad or the centerpiece of a lunch or light dinner."

 

• Ready In: 45mins
• Ingredients: 12
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 2 large green peppers, halved and seeded
• 2 large red peppers, halved and seeded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sweet onions or 2 tablespoons yellow onions, finely chopped
• 1 1⁄4 cups ripe tomatoes, peeled seeded and cut into a 1/4 inch dice
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1⁄4 teaspoon cayenne

• Dressing

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1⁄2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 pinch salt
• fresh ground black pepper

directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place the peppers cut-side down on a baking sheet with a lip or a baking pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn peppers over and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Repeat previous step two more times. Total baking time is 25 minutes.
3. Remove tray from oven and cover with a clean dishtowel for 10 minutes. The peppers should be soft and tender and you can easily slip off the skins.
4. Cut the green peppers into a 1/4 inch dice. Slice the red pepper halves in half (now they will be quarters) and reserve.
5. Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add onions and stir for a minute, then add garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Add the green peppers, lower the heat a bit and cook for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, cumin and cayenne and mix well. Cook an additional 6 minutes looking for the mixture to loose some of its moisture.
6. Combine the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl and whisk.
7. To assemble your salad, arrange the red pepper quarters on a serving platter -- a la spokes on a wheel or flower petals. Its fine if the overlap a bit. Drizzle dressing over the red peppers. Spoon the green pepper-tomato mixture into the center -- allowing some to casually spill over.
8. Alternately, you can arrange this on single serving platters with 2 red pepper quarters in a V-shape and the green pepper-tomato mixture placed where the two strips join together.
9. This salad can be served chilled or at room temperature.

Reviews

[Shari2]

Very nice dish for a light lunch. The flavors meld very nicely together. Thanks for posting.

 

[Charmie777]

This was nice and refreshing. I doubled the dressing ingredients for half of the peppers! Oh well, I must like things highly seasoned.

 

[kiwidutch]

I am unsure about how to best rate this one so prefer to give a comment but no star rating. I had very mixed impressions about this .. mostly becuase the texture is very soft and I think I prefer a veggie dish to be crunchier. However, having said that, the taste is good... but it lacks the something extra that would set it apart. I also went by the ingredient list and therefore didn't add any garlic but it would definiately be a good inclusion. I roasted my peppers exactly as stated and accidently tore the first quarter trying to get the skin off and didn't manage so left the skins on the rest.. which is no biggie since the taste is fine. I made this a salad and maybe I would have been better making it as a dip/topping as others suggested. It's a recipe that I would repeat but with changes.. I'd keep the quarters raw, but roast some additional red peppers to add the the green ones and add garlic. That would make a tasty salad where I could use raw red peppers instead of bread to pile the mix onto and enjoy. I'm going the experiment, Thanks!

 

[Charlotte J]

I really enjoyed this. You have to use red peppers too as the recipe says as it is the red peppers that makes this dish! There is no garlic list in the ingredients, so I guessed and used one small clove. I could eat this for a light meal but not my husband. He'd be asking where's the beef. Thank you Toni for sharing this recipe. Made for the N*A*M*E~Tag game

 

[sugarpea]

Great flavor but it seemed more like a sauce than a salad.