This year, somehow, I have grown at least two bucketfuls of red and orange peppers, outdoors, out of four plants and they are still producing in mid-March. Last year I was struggling to grow any at all and the ones that did grow went rotten before they ripened. In fact, in nearly 40 years of gardening in the same place (outdoors) I have never managed to grow more than a handful of small green peppers a year out of plants that start to grow just as the cold weather hits and it’s all over.  Was this years success due to the warmer climate? We had a lot more rain than usual, could it be that?  I amended the soil with calcium and phosphorous after doing a google search on Why My Capsicums Plants Won’t Fruit, maybe it was that. I have saved some of the seed in case it was that. Anyway, whatever the reason, woohoo! I’m enjoying them! My only regret is that I didn’t plant any eggplants to go with them, who knows they might have been a bonanza also.

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These stuffed peppers have all the smoked fishy, creamy potato comfort of a fish pie but with the added smooth, luxurious sweetness of red peppers.

I have adapted this recipe from Julie Buiso’s beautiful book Take a vine ripened tomato. I switched it from being a Spanish tapas style dish, that uses multiple small red peppers, to a main meal using only three or four large peppers. I also eliminated the step that involves roasting and peeling the peppers prior to stuffing as I found stuffing them when already cooked and soft to be difficult, and they are going to be cooked anyway. How many peppers you use depends on their size…I used 2 whole long and slender red peppers and one very large squat orange pepper which, when cut in half, held the same amount of stuffing as the two red peppers. Each of these was a good amount for a single serve.

Ingredients

For the stuffed peppers:

2 to 4 red, orange or yellow capsicums

500 gm mashing potatoes

300 gm smoked fish

2 crushed garlic cloves

100 ml olive oil

Salt and black pepper

For the pepper cream sauce:

2 red peppers

300 ml cream

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Peel, cube and cook the potatoes in boiling salted water. When soft, drain and allow to air dry. Mash to a smooth puree with the garlic and olive oil. Salt to taste.
2. Meanwhile put the two red peppers that you are using for the sauce into a hot oven and cook until blistered and blackened. Allow to cool then peel the blackened skin away, leaving the soft, cooked flesh. Puree this using a device of your choice.
3. While all this is going on, gently heat the cream to boiling point, watching carefully that it doesn’t boil over (mine did and made a huge mess) then let it bubble gently until reduced by half.
4. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Flake the smoked fish and combine with the mashed potato mixture.
5. Prepare the peppers to be stuffed: depending on the size you might cut them in half or just slice the top off. Before making any cuts, make sure they will stand up in that position. Pile the potato and fish mixture inside each pepper. Place snuggly in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and carefully pour 3 tablespoons of water around the base of the peppers without getting the potato wet.
6. Place in the hot oven and cook for about an hour until the peppers are soft and the potato mixture crunchy on top. Allow to cool a bit.
7. While they are cooking stir the reduced cream into the peppers you pureed earlier to make the pepper cream sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. You may need to heat this up again.
8. To serve, place a stuffed pepper on each plate and spoon the sauce over the top.