“roasted” Pepper

We were trying to get lunch on the table and I wanted some roasted peppers to go into the cherry pepper salad Aki had put together. Since Amaya was hungry—we were too—and I could not let the roasted pepper idea go, I whipped out the butane torch and blistered the skin of this Anaheim pepper. When the exterior was evenly blackened, I set about peeling. What was exciting is the torching allowed me to use a paper towel to just wipe away the charred skin, similar to how we would peel a roasted beet. The issue with the torching technique is the pepper was still raw. Not a bad place to be for many applications; however, I was looking for a more tender-fleshed pepper, the texture of a roasted pepper. To quickly cook the pepper, we microwaved it for thirty seconds. The end result was a “roasted” pepper which was easily peeled and filled my need for a roasted pepper in a pickled pepper salad.