INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Many recipes calling for peppers--sweet bell or fiery chilie--bury the
elusive line "roasted, peeled, seeded and..." in the ingredient
listed. There are many ways to accomplish this task. No caveats are
necessary for sweet bell peppers, but exercise certain precautions in
handling chilies containing potent oils. Old-fashioned cookbooks call
for wearing rubber gloves when handling chilies. 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. And don't handle hot
chilies under running water, since that spreads the oil vapors upward
to your eyes. Achieving perfect peppers is a two-part process,  heating
and then cooling them, so the skin separates from the flesh.  For
recipes like pepper salad, in which the peppers should retain
firmness, it is better to roast and chill them quickly. For recipes
such as a sauce in which the pepper is pureed, more tender peppers  are
desirable. When roasting hot chilies, make a small slit at the  stem
since they occasionally explode. 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.  Turn
them with tongs when one side is blistered, since they will  float on
the surface. 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. 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.  o Place the
peppers 4 inches above a hot charcoal or gas grill, and  turn them
until the skin is charred. o Place a wire cake rack over a  gas or
electric burner. 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. o Place the peppers on a rack on  a
cookie sheet in a 550F oven until totally blistered. Only use this
method for a sauce or other recipe in which the peppers are destined
to be pureed. For cooling peppers, the options are not as plentiful:  o
Place them in ice water. This stops the cooking action immediately,
and cools them enough to peel them within a minute. o The alternative
is to wrap the peppers in a plastic bag and allow them to steam. This
separates the flesh from the skin, but it will be 20 minutes or more
before they can be handled. 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. There are no choices to make for the final step: Pull  the
skin off and remove the seeds. The bell can now be rinsed under  cold
water. From Prodigy Cooking Class  From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster
collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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