Your barbecued burgers, ribs and spicy sausage will thank you for this.

Its perfect served with meats straight off the grill; the peppers are cooked until meltingly soft and with the addition of smoked chili, roasted cumin, garlic and tomato paste you’ll end up with a robust and spicy side dish.

It’s so good that I’ll eat it without meat, so vegetarians take heart!

You don’t have to use red peppers; try yellow, orange or a combination of all three – red peppers just look brighter. Avoid the green ones as they’re under-ripe yellow peppers and aren’t good for this recipe.

If you can’t get hold of chipotle powder or dried flakes, use a mild chili powder. It won’t kick you quite as hard but is delicious nonetheless!

Note at the end:

SWEET RED PEPPERS with a CHIPOTLE KICK (Adapted from a Delia Smith recipe)

(Serves 6-eight)

Ingredients:

2 lbs / 900g of red peppers (or any combo of red, orange and yellow)

3 tablespoons of extra-v olive oil

2 rounded teaspoons of cumin seeds

2 teaspoons of chipotle powder or mild chili powder; increased or decreased according to taste

10 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

5 tablespoons of tomato paste/puree

Sea salt

Action:

Dry roast the cumin seeds in a skillet on the stove top until slightly darker and fragrant – set aside.

Wash and dry the peppers; remove the stalks, seeds and any excess of white membrane and cut into ¼ inch / 5mm strips

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the toasted cumin first. Toss around for a minute then add the garlic and chipotle/chili powder. Stir to combine everything then add the sliced pepper strips.

Give it a good stir to make sure everything is well blended. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Allow to cook until the peppers are very soft… 35-45 minutes.

Uncover; stir in the tomato paste and continue to cook uncovered for another 15 minutes or so – if there’s a lot of liquid, turn the heat up to reduce it. Taste and adjust the amount of tomato paste if you think it needs it.

Give it a good sprinkle of sea salt – stir, taste and add more as needed.

Serve warm or at room temperature. It keeps well in the fridge for a few days but bring it back to room temp before serving.

Notes:

Chipotle is a smoked dried jalapeno chili pepper and comes in cans in adobo sauce, whole dried, powdered, or crumbled flakes.

I’ll be traveling for a couple of weeks and plan to take a vacation from my computer as well. I’ll no doubt return with some gastronomical delights to share, so until then……Happy July 4th and Bon Appétit!