Roast Pepper with Tomatoes and Anchovies

This dish is so simple to make but has bags and bags of flavour. The sweet flavours from the roast pepper and tomatoes, the salty punch from the anchovies, and the acidic sharpness of the vinaigrette on the salad just makes this dish amazing! Warm crusty bread is a must to mop up the oils in the Pepper!

One of Rachy's favourites!

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 Lamuyo Pepper (2 small peppers can be used instead)
400g of sweet sunstream vine ripened tomatoes (the smaller the better has they have more intense flavours)
Anchovies
Parmesan cheese
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Fresh Basil leaves
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

For the Salad:

Gem lettuce
Rocket
Qtr of a fresh Lemon
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Crusty bread

What to do:

Heat your oven to 200c

In a pan of boiling water blanch all the tomatoes, for approximately one minute (once you see the skin split take them out, there done), peel the skin off the tomatoes and put to one side.

Half the pepper down the stalk (it makes it look nicer on the plate) scrape out all the seeds and white pith. Drizzle with some olive oil, season with salt & pepper and rip some basil leaves laying them on the bottom of the peeper. Add the tomatoes to fill the pepper. Rip in some more basil leaves and layer on the anchovies (be as liberal as you want, we love them so the more the better!). Finally, grate some Parmesan cheese over the top.

Put the peppers into a roasting pan or dish and put in the oven for around 20/25 minutes. Your looking for the pepper to roast, colour and breakdown (its not ready if the pepper is still purt as when you put it in!).

For the salad:

Cut the gem lettuce at the stem, add a handful of Rocket (washed and dried) and put them into a bowl. In a separate bowl put 4 glugs of Olive oil, one glug of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt & pepper and the juice of qtr of a lemon. Mix well.

Handy Tip:

Don't put the vinaigrette on the salad until ready to serve as this will make your salad soggy!

Warm some bread in the oven for a few minutes. In the meantime pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss. Put the pepper on a plate and add a some salad....done.

Please let me know what you think?

Recipie by Simon Hopkinson

Photo's by Rach Grice