I am baaaaaaack!
As you may know if you are a subscriber of my newsletter, I have been on holiday. My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this year and we wanted to do something special. Is there something more special than going to Vegas and renewing our vows in front of Elvis? Well, I bet there is, but we wanted to do something fun and unique. And I am so glad we did, because we really had a lot of fun. Apart from Vegas, we also visited some great places – like Los Angeles, Yosemite, Death Valley and Palm Springs. I really loved them all!
It’s been great, but now we are back to reality. When I came home after such a long trip, my fridge was deserted. We were incredibly hungry and craving some homemade food, after all the junk you get on airplanes. Luckily, the pantry saved my life.
Do you remember that I put summer in a jar, back in August?
I am so glad I did because I had some great, comforting food for a quick dinner before going straight to bed and try to fight jet lag. The jars in the pantry were filled with confit cherry tomatoes – I gave you the recipe already, do you remember? – which we ate with some toasted bread. But there were also some great peperoncini sott’olio (stuffed cherry bomb chili peppers) that were great as an appetizer.
We have prepared them at the end of August and now are just ready to be eaten. They came from our vegetable garden, but they can be found in stores and markets everywhere. I like them very much because they are just a little hot, enough to make you feel some spicy flavor but not so much to make you feel like you have fire in your mouth.
My mother has been preparing them for ages and now it is a tradition in my house too, so I’d love to share this recipe with you.
Stuffed cherry bomb chili peppers
Ingredients
30 cherry bomb chili peppers
160 grams tin of tuna (if you are using 5 oz tins, you’ll need a bit more than just one tin)
A handful of capers
A handful of anchovy fillets
A cup of white wine
A cup of white wine vinegar
Olive oil
The first thing you have to do is to put your gloves on because chili peppers are really hot! Then take each pepper, cut around the stalk, and carefully remove all the seeds inside. Wash the peppers very carefully, making sure to remove all remaining seeds.
Then pour the wine and the vinegar into a large pot and bring them to boil. Place the peppers into the boiling liquid, making sure that they are all covered, and let them boil for a couple of minutes. Drain the liquid and let the peppers dry on a rack.
When the peppers are completely dry, you can start filling them. Drain the tuna, the capers and the anchovies, then mix them all using a food processor.
Fill each pepper with the mixture and place them into a sterilized jar. Make sure that the peppers are quite tightly packed into the jar – they must not float. When the jar is full, fill it with olive oil – until the peppers are completely covered. Close tightly and boil the jars into a pan of water for 20 minutes.
Leave the jars in a cool dry place for at least 4 weeks and make sure to consume them within 6 months.
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