Piquillos Rellenos

Navarre's wood-roasted piquillo peppers stuffed with salt cod and napped in a cream of their own juices, the finest thing Spain does with a sweet pepper

Origin: Spain

From the journey of Bell Pepper.

The piquillo of Lodosa, in Navarre, is one of the great sweet peppers of the world and holds a protected designation of origin to prove it. Small, squat, and pointed (the name means 'little beak'), it is picked in autumn, roasted whole over wood fires so that it takes up a distinct smokiness, then peeled entirely by hand, since washing would carry away the flavour, and packed into jars without water or brine. What emerges is a pepper of extraordinary concentration: silky, faintly smoky, sweet with a low bitter edge, and firm enough to hold a filling. Stuffing them is the classic treatment across the Basque country and Navarre, and the traditional filling is brandade of salt cod, the bacalao that Spain has eaten through Lent for centuries, bound into a soft purée with milk, oil, and garlic. The peppers are filled, warmed through, and served under a sauce built from the pepper juices, a few of the peppers themselves blitzed in, and cream. It is a dish of pintxo bars and Sunday tables alike, and it demonstrates the essential point about the sweet pepper: robbed of its heat, it becomes a vegetable substantial enough to carry a dish rather than merely season one.

Ingredients

Peppers

  • 12 whole piquillo peppers, from a jar

Filling

  • 300 g salt cod (bacalao), soaked 24 to 36 hours with several changes of water
  • 250 ml whole milk
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 100 ml extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 pinch white pepper

Sauce

  • 1 whole small onion, finely chopped
  • 4 whole piquillo peppers (extra, for the sauce)
  • 150 ml double cream
  • 100 ml fish or chicken stock
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 to taste salt

Method

  1. Drain the soaked salt cod, put it in a pan with the milk and one crushed garlic clove, bring barely to a simmer, and poach very gently for 8 minutes until it flakes. Lift out, reserving the milk, and flake the fish, discarding any skin and bone.
  2. Warm the remaining garlic gently in the olive oil without colouring, then beat the flaked cod with the garlicky oil and enough of the warm poaching milk to make a thick, smooth, spoonable purée. Season with white pepper. Cool until firm enough to pipe or spoon.
  3. Fill each piquillo carefully through its open end with the cooled brandade, using a piping bag or a small spoon, and set them in a single layer in an ovenproof dish.
  4. Make the sauce: soften the onion in the tablespoon of oil until translucent, add the four extra peppers and the stock, simmer for 5 minutes, then blend smooth with the cream and season with salt. Sieve for a silkier finish.
  5. Pour the sauce around and over the stuffed peppers and warm through in a 180°C oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until hot but not bubbling hard. Serve warm rather than piping hot, with bread.

Notes

Jarred piquillos from Lodosa are what almost every Spanish cook uses, and they are far better suited to stuffing than home-roasted peppers, which are thinner and wetter. Other fillings are entirely traditional: minced veal or oxtail, prawns, mushrooms, or, in the Basque country, a mixture of the two with a little of the pepper sauce worked through. For a vegetarian version, fill them with a thick béchamel of leek and mushroom. Serve as a pintxo, a starter, or, with rice, as a main course.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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