Salsa can’t be salsa without some peppers. Besides adding some heat to this condiment, roasted peppers contribute a sweet and fruitier taste. In my salsa, I use red and green bell peppers and jalapeno peppers. In today’s post, I’ll be describing how I process the bell peppers.
The one lesson I can’t stress enough when preparing peppers is to plan to protect your hands and eyes. To protect your eyes, wear some eye protection such as goggles or even a pair of reading glasses to prevent a rouge seed or unexpected spray of pepper juice. Also, vinyl or rubber gloves are necessary. A couple of summers ago, I seeded a bunch of jalapeno peppers without gloves. And even though I had washed my hands several times, the next day, I could still smell and taste the peppers on my hands; for many days after, I needed to be very conscious about not placing my hands around my eyes. Okay, so let’s get to those peppers!
For the salsa recipe, I’ll be using four green peppers and two red peppers. Step #1 involves washing the peppers with just cold water and a couple of Dawn dishwashing liquid drops. I rinse them off and let them air dry. Next, cut the pepper in half and take out the seeds and white veins.
Since I like the taste of roasted peppers, the next process serves two purposes. First, roasting enhances the flavor, but it also causes the skin to blister, making removing the skin very easy. Place the bell pepper halves with outsides up on a flat baking sheet. Raise the rack of the oven to the top placement. Roast the peppers for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
I usually pinch the skin where there is a blister and tear it off in large pieces. Not all the skin will come off, which is okay; you want to remove most of it.
I then slice the pepper halves into smaller pieces and place them in a food processor. When I have made a chunkier salsa style, I chop the peppers into small bite-size pieces rather than the food processor.
Keep following my blog, which will next address the prep work for jalapeno peppers.
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