| 1 | Many recipes calling for peppers--sweet bell or fiery chilie--bury the elusive line "roasted, peeled, seeded and..." in the ingredient listed. |
| 2 | There are many ways to accomplish this task. |
| 3 | No caveats are necessary for sweet bell peppers, but exercise certain precautions in handling chilies containing potent oils. |
| 4 | Old-fashioned cookbooks call for wearing rubber gloves when handling chilies. |
| 5 | Instead, cut hot chilies on a plate that can be washed in the dishwasher, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling them, and never touch your skin until you"ve washed your hands. |
| 6 | And don"t handle hot chilies under running water, since that spreads the oil vapors upward to your eyes. |
| 7 | Achieving perfect peppers is a two-part process, heating and then cooling them, so the skin separates from the flesh. |
| 8 | For recipes like pepper salad, in which the peppers should retain firmness, it is better to roast and chill them quickly. |
| 9 | For recipes such as a sauce in which the pepper is pureed, more tender peppers are desirable. |
| 10 | When roasting hot chilies, make a small slit at the stem since they occasionally explode. |
| 11 | Here are ways to heat peppers: o for a large number of peppers, and to retain the most texture, lower peppers gently into 375f oil and fry until the skin blisters. |
| 12 | Turn them with tongs when one side is blistered, since they will float on the surface. |
| 13 | This method is also the most effective if peppers are not perfectly shaped, since it is difficult to get the heat from a broiler into the folds of peppers. |
| 14 | Here are other ways to heat peppers: o place the peppers 6 inches from the broiler element of the stove, turning them with tongs until all surfaces are charred. |
| 15 | O place the peppers 4 inches above a hot charcoal or gas grill, and turn them until the skin is charred. |
| 16 | O place a wire cake rack over a gas or electric burner. |
| 17 | O set the gas or electric burner at the highest temperature, and use tongs to turn the peppers on a wire cake rack until all surfaces are charred. |
| 18 | O place the peppers on a rack on a cookie sheet in a 550f oven until totally blistered. |
| 19 | Only use this method for a sauce or other recipe in which the peppers are destined to be pureed. |
| 20 | For cooling peppers, the options are not as plentiful: o place them in ice water. |
| 21 | This stops the cooking action immediately, and cools them enough to peel them within a minute. |
| 22 | O the alternative is to wrap the peppers in a plastic bag and allow them to steam. |
| 23 | This separates the flesh from the skin, but it will be 20 minutes or more before they can be handled. |
| 24 | If you wrap peppers in a plastic bag to cool, they will soften in the time it takes for them to cool enough to be handled. |
| 25 | There are no choices to make for the final step: pull the skin off and remove the seeds. |
| 26 | The bell can now be rinsed under cold water |
