Hi, I'm Earl. Product Manager at Korean Marinated Bell Peppers
I interrupt the slew of posts covering my New York trip in lieu of a culinary success! Last weekend, I put a Korean style spin on the Greek dish piperies xythates—marinated, roasted, and skinned bell peppers.
I got the inspiration for the dish from Cava, a Greek mezze restaurant in the D.C. area. Mezze is Greek for tapas, which is Spanish for appetizer. Recently, tapas have been garnering a strong foundation in the restaurant industry, with some restaurants solely serving tapas.
My theory is that the idea of small dishes is appealing to dieters who try to limit their portions. If you’re one of those people, just be careful not to try too many different tapas or else the benefits of small dishes disappear.
Anyways, the Greek version of marinated bell peppers uses olive oil and red wine vinegar. I used sesame seed oil and rice wine vinegar instead. Admittedly, I introduced a little bit of European flavors in my dish by utilizing balsamic vinegar, but on after thought, I shouldn’t have added the balsamic.
Regardless, the marinated bell peppers turned out incredible—savory and soft. They were sort of like thick noodles cooked very al denté. The roasting process does wonders to the bell peppers, causing them to become sushi-like soft. A similar effect can be obtained by frying the bell peppers in oil, but only roasting allows cooks to easily peel the skin of the peppers and cut out a large majority of the calories.So first, I roasted the bell peppers whole, which gives you a product that looks like the opening picture. Then I spent a painstaking amount of time peeling off the skin from each bell peppers. This particular process can get quite messy, but I find it fun and relaxing at the same time.
After peeling the skin off these roasted bell peppers, I sliced them into thin strips by first quartering each bell pepper. As a side note, leaving the bell peppers quartered and not slicing them down into smaller strips will leave slabs of bell pepper that can be perfect as a sandwich filling.
With the sliced strips of bell peppers in hand, I simply marinated them in a mixture of sesame seed oil, rice wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, salt, and sesame seeds. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact portions but half and half of oil and vinegar, with vinegar overtaking the oil ever so slightly, should suffice. Vary the other ingredients depending on taste.
These bell peppers are great as a snack or side dish at a meal. They’re high in monounsaturated fats because of the oil marinade—monounsaturated fats are healthy in moderation—and the bell peppers contain a ton of vitamin C and A.
One last thing. I saved a bunch of bell peppers and put them in a hot pepper liquid instead of the marinade. The result was, in my opinion, a very marketable product.
Ingredients
- Large bell peppers
- Sesame seed oil
- Rice vinegar
- Balsamic vinegar
- Salt
- Pepper
Directions
- Roast the bell peppers by broiling.
- Place the bell peppers in airtight container for 5 minutes.
- Peel the bell peppers once they are cool.
- Cut out the stem, remove the seeds, then cut the bell peppers into strips.
- For the marinade, mix together the sesame seed oil, rice vinegar, and balsamic vinegar in a half oil, half vinegar ratio; vary amount of salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar to taste.
- Marinate bell pepper strips in marinade. Eat when cool!
