Fried Calamari is a must-know for any aspiring Italian chef. I often serve mine alongside home-made chips, taking advantage of the already heated and ready-to-go deep fryer. Besides, that combination sort of gives a nod to the British classic fish and chips.
You may have noticed that most seafood platters are served with lemon wedges, which is interesting to me. The combination of the citric fruit and fish comes from the olden days when it was more difficult to keep fish fresh for a long time. As there wasn’t ice in those days, the product often developed an unpleasant odor after being stored or transported to a nearby city, the journey often taking a few days. Lemon was used to combat the smell of the less-than-fresh seafood. Others say that it was used like salt to help preserve the quality of the nutrients and avoid any bacterial problems.
But now that transportation and keeping our seafood fresh isn’t a problem, we still use lemon! My parents were against the use of lemon and claimed that it is an insult to the chef to use it. If you like the combination, you are free to eat it as you choose. However, maybe you could try it without and enjoy the flavours of the fish exactly as they should be savoured.
Among our repertoire of appetisers, starters, and snacks, is roasted red pepper bruschetta. We’ve been known to whip some up for a light supper, or to accompany a light salad or soup, like this rich and tasty watercress soup. The red pepper is such an evocative taste of the Mediterranean for me. I remember the smell on the nights my mum flame-roasted them on a small fire, blackening them before peeling off the skin, rinsing and deseeding them, and then adding them to salads, pastas and of course bruschetta too. For more toasty bread and salad sensations, try this warm chicken salad with garlic and tomato bread.
Mama would also store them in jars to add wonderful flavour into other recipes. If you have the option of flame-roasting your peppers, I would certainly recommend it for this roasted red pepper bruschetta. If you have a gas hob, you can roast them straight over the flame, staying close by, and turning them as you go with metal tongs. If you don’t have that option, then conventional oven roasting is also great. If you want to speed this recipe up massively, you can buy and use really tasty roasted peppers in jars.
Toasted ciabatta piled with roasted red peppers, red onion, tomato and balsamic; a sure-fire palate opener or tasty snack
Ingredients
½ ciabatta loaf
175g red peppers
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
⅓ red onion, finely sliced
1 tomato, seeds removed and finely chopped
⅓ bunch fresh basil, roughly chopped
3-4 tsp balsamic vinegar
Pinch of paprika
salt
Instructions
Either flame-roast or conventionally roast your red peppers. If you are doing this in the oven, preheat it to 200ºC, brush the peppers with a little oil, sprinkle over a little salt and maybe a pinch of smoked paprika, and roast for 25-35 minutes until they are soft and coloured. Let them cool enough to remove the seeds before chopping them into thick ribbon strands.
Let the oven cool a while and then turn the grill on. Cut your ciabatta into thick slices (about 2.5cm wide), brush one side with olive oil and grill with the oil-brushed side up until just crisp and golden. Remove the bread and let cool.
Combine the roasted peppers, tomato, garlic, onion and basil in a small mixing bowl, then spoon out over the toast. Drizzle with the balsamic vinegar, garnish with a sprig of basil and serve straight away so that you can enjoy them warm.
Notes
If you're using pre-roasted peppers, you'll whip this snack up in 10 minutes!
Buon' giorno! Welcome to my Italian food blog.
I am Italian, and proud of it! Italy has so much going for it: with one foot quite literally in the beautiful Mediterranean, my
country’s climate and location give us an amazing cornucopia of ingredients, which is why our culture is steeped in a hearty
romantic culinary tradition. My wife and I love our food, so all my recipes are designed for two. If you're cooking for an average
sized modern family - perhaps not the traditional extended Italian family - just double the quantities.
Among our repertoire of appetisers, starters, and snacks, is roasted red pepper bruschetta. We’ve been known to whip some up for a light supper, or to accompany a light salad or soup, like this rich and tasty watercress soup. The red pepper is such an evocative taste of the Mediterranean for me. I remember the smell on the nights my mum flame-roasted them on a small fire, blackening them before peeling off the skin, rinsing and deseeding them, and then adding them to salads, pastas and of course bruschetta too. For more toasty bread and salad sensations, try this warm chicken salad with garlic and tomato bread.
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