Peperonata by Emiko.

This 5-Ingredient Summer Stew From Puglia Gets Better With Time
Italian local, author of Florentine: The True Cuisine of Florence Emiko Davies is taking us on a grand tour of Italy, showing us how to make classic, fiercely regional dishes at home.
Emiko (half Japanese, half Australian) has lived in Florence for over 8 years with her Tuscan husband.

"Sweet, silky, and so much more than the sum of its parts, peperonata is a southern Italian stew of slow-cooked peppers, onions, and tomatoes that is on regular rotation on my summer table.
I buy what looks like way too many bright, firm peppers at the market (I go for red, usually, but there's nothing stopping you from adding some yellow ones, too.
And don't be alarmed by the quantity—they melt down into a deceptively small amount), then I make a big pot of it so that there's enough for the next day or two.
Because like so many great Italian stews with a tomato base, this is one of those dishes that is always better the next day.
And then I'm in peperonata heaven for a few days, enjoying its versatility.
I eat it on top of toasted bread as antipasto or a quick lunch; as a side with some simply grilled meat or fish; or simply as is, with lots and lots of bread to mop up juices and perhaps a big ball of buffalo mozzarella.
It's even delicious as a sauce for pasta; try it with a short pasta like fusilli.

My favorite version comes from Roman writer Ada Boni, who has a recipe in her 1929 cookbook, Il Talismano della Felicità (“The Talisman of Happiness,” which was published in a very abridged version in English as The Talisman).
The peppers, onions, and peeled and seeded tomatoes all go into the pot at the same time, where they're doused with some olive oil and salt.
They're placed over a very low heat and covered for an hour so that the whole thing stews together very, very slowly.
Right at the end, a glass of vinegar goes over the top and it's ready."

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 round tomatoes, medium ripe
  
• extra-virgin olive oil
  
• 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
  
• 3 large red bell peppers, stems and seeds removed
  
• handful of basil, torn
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste
  
• Score a cross in the bottoms of the tomatoes and blanch for about 30 seconds in boiling water. Immediately place them in a bowl of cool water until they're cool enough to manage and it's easy to peel off the skins. Chop into quarters, remove seeds, and dice the flesh. Set aside.
• Slice peppers into thin strips a few inches long.
• In a deep skillet, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over low heat and add the onion, the peppers, and tomatoes with a good pinch of salt and some black pepper. Cover and let cook, stirring and checking occasionally, until the peppers have melted down into very soft, silky stew and the tomatoes have broken down into a thick sauce, about 1 hour. If needed, splash with water every now and then.
• Remove from the heat, scattering with basil, and serve at room temperature.
• 
  

"My photographs have been featured online in Kinfolk Journal and Maeve Magazine to name a couple. I was awarded Best Photography in a Blog 2015 by Italy Magazine and was a finalist for the 2013 Shoot the Chef photography competition and Eat Drink Blog’s 2013 photography competition. Amanda Hesser named me as one of her 100 favourite Food Voices."

- Articles from Emiko you'll love:
The 19th-Century Cookbook That Taught Me About Italian Cooking.
Farrotto: A Food Hybrid Italians Have Embraced
How Italians Feast on Easter (Starring Ricotta & Lamb)

Tomato Recipes.

-Summer Fest: 20 Tomato Recipes - Pinch My Salt:
Tomato Tarte Tatin
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2¾ pounds 2-inch tomatoes (or Roma tomatoes), halved and seeded
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon choppedfresh oregano
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pie pastry for a 12-inch tart
Extra sprigs fresh oregano (for garnish)

A peperonata.

A peperonata recipe straight from Rome | Kitchen sink tales | Life and style | The Guardian
by Rachel Roddy.

Serves 8
1kg red peppers
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
A small knob of butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely sliced
1 clove garlic, peeled and pressed
Salt, to taste
450g peeled plum tomatoes (or fresh when in season)
Red wine vinegar, to taste (optional)

1 Cut the peppers into strips, about 1cm wide and 6cm long, discarding the seeds, stalks and any pithy white bits.

2 In a heavy-based pan with a lid, warm the olive oil and butter over a medium-low heat, then cook the onion and garlic until soft, translucent and fragrant (they should not brown), which usually takes about 10 minutes. Add the peppers and a pinch of salt, stir, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every now and then.

3 Add the tomatoes, stir and then leave, uncovered, at a lively simmer for 30-40 minutes. Stir occasionally, gently pressing the tomatoes against the side of the pan, so they break up.

4 The peperonata is ready when the peppers are soft and everything has come together into a thick stew (it shouldn’t be sloppy). Taste, season generously, and add a dash of vinegar to sharpen things up, should you want to.


More by Rachel Roddy: Rachel Roddy | The Guardian

Peperonata.

Peperonata from "Divina Cucina" blog.
Or Tuscan Bell Pepper-Red Onion Stew.
Notes:
For the pureed tomatoes, you can use a puree of fresh peeled and seeded tomatoes that have been briefly cooked to concentrate their flavor, or canned whole tomatoes that you've blended with their juices. (Canned tomatoes are often the better choice, since they are usually top-quality.)
If you make this with beautiful, ripe summer bell peppers, they should provide enough sweetness to balance the small amount of vinegar.
If your peppers are less sweet and the peperonata tastes a little too tart, add a tiny bit of sugar, a pinch at a time, until the flavor is balanced.

Don't brown the onion, just let it soften to a pale golden colour.
The texture of the peppers and onions should be silky and soft enough to crush between your fingers.
The stew will mellow when left in the fridge for a day or two.

4 large bell peppers, cut into 1 inch strips
4 large red onions, peeled and cut in half and into slices
olive oil
salt
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs red or white wine vinegar.
4 Tbs capers

Drizzle a little olive oil in a large skillet.
Add the peppers and onions.
Sprinkle with salt (this will bring the liquid out of the veggies.)
Cover and let cook until the peppers and onions have become soft.
Add the sugar and vinegar.
Turn up the heat and caramelize the vegetables.
Taste for the correct balance of sweet and sour.
I use regular white sugar and wine vinegar.
Add the capers, stir and turn off the heat.
This is great hot, but best the next day at room temperature.

More recipe and a word of caution:
- Skillet Steak Peperonata Recipe | Leite's Culinaria
A word of caution:
Don’t use green bell peppers in this peperonata.
We know, some of you love your green bell peppers.
And that’s very nice for you.
But red, yellow, and orange bell peppers have a distinctly different flavor profile, one whose sweet notes meld marvelously with the other ingredients here.
The rather unique smack of green bell peppers? Not so much. Trust us.

- Peperonata (Sweet Bell Peppers With Olive Oil, Onion, and Tomatoes) | Serious Eats
Notes:
For the pureed tomatoes, you can use a puree of fresh peeled and seeded tomatoes that have been briefly cooked to concentrate their flavor, or canned whole tomatoes that you've blended with their juices. (Canned tomatoes are often the better choice, since they are usually top-quality.)
If you make this with beautiful, ripe summer bell peppers, they should provide enough sweetness to balance the small amount of vinegar.
If your peppers are less sweet and the peperonata tastes a little too tart, add a tiny bit of sugar, a pinch at a time, until the flavor is balanced.

- Peperoni in padella (Angelina's Fried Peppers) | Memorie di Angelina
Take it from Angelina:
Don’t be shy with the oil.
You need to use a lot of oil to get the right flavor and consistency for this dish.
Make sure that all the vegetables glisten; if not, add more oil.
And use olive oil—no other oil will do.
You can remove the excess before serving if you want a lighter dish.
Many recipes for fried peppers call for adding a bit of fresh tomato or tomato purée. I’m not partial to either of these variations, but that’s a matter of personal preference.
Whatever other ingredients you decide to add to your fried peppers, be sure that you cook the peppers until they are actually done.
The Italian way with vegetables is to cook them until they are completely tender—not crisp-tender as in Asian stir-fry or trendy North American cooking.
This is particularly important for peppers; they have a completely different taste when they are raw, which some people have described (charitably if you ask me) as ‘tangy’.

- Nigel Slater's classic peperonata recipe | Life and style | The Guardian
The trick
The peppers must be sweet and ripe.
Don't brown the onion, just let it soften to a pale golden colour.
The texture of the peppers and onions should be silky and soft enough to crush between your fingers.
The stew will mellow when left in the fridge for a day or two.
The twist
I'm not sure I'd risk incurring the late Mrs David's wrath by introducing any twists, but it is worth noting its uses beyond that of an antipasto.
I have served it on both soft and toasted polenta, used it as a pasta sauce and even stirred cooked penne through it before baking it with a few slices of mozzarella on top.
Drained of its liquid, this recipe makes a splendid stuffing for sourdough sandwiches.
You could ring the changes with tarragon instead of the basil or even coriander leaves, as long as you don't call it peperonata.
I have used the last dregs from a dish as a pizza topping with surprising success.

- Peperonata | Williams-Sonoma
'via Blog this'

Anna Del Conte shares a few of her top tips.

Queen cucina: Anna Del Conte - Britain's indisputable authority on Italian cooking - shares a few of her top tips | Features | Lifestyle | The Independent



Del Conte writes that "one of the best possible ways to serve linguine" is with the "simplest of all dressings": garlic, olive oil and chilli flakes.

"It's important what you put in, but equally important what you leave out.
Somehow, the British use more sauce with pasta than it needs and you tend to add too much parmesan.
It should always be used with discretion."

I learnt why my rendition of the Venetian classic risi e bisi (rice and peas) never matches the one I had near the Rialto bridge ("should be made with very young peas"), why the gorgeous Tuscan bean soup ribollita tastes even better with keeping ("it should be prepared a day in advance to allow the flavours to develop before it is reheated, hence its name 'reboiled'") and why the strands of my cooked spaghetti lack life after draining. (It does not have the requisite goccia or a drop of moisture: "Experts never drain through a colander but lift it out of the water with tongs... spaghetti should be quite moist when the sauce is added".)

"...how to overcome the "invasively metallic" taste of tomato purée. Here's the advice in The Gastronomy of Italy: "[It] should be used sparingly and allowed to cook in the sauce for some time. A small amount of sugar helps the process."

"In salads, there's a lack of oil and too much vinegar. It should be four parts of olive oil to one or two of wine vinegar or lemon juice," said Del Conte. "In Italy, we say you need four people to dress a bowl of salad. A generous person to pour the oil, a wise person to sprinkle the salt, a miser to add the vinegar and a patient person to toss it – 33 times is said to be the minimum. Where pasta dishes call for butter, I don't think you use enough. One chef was amazed at the amount I used."

Oliver, was "the ideal taster and tester. He did not have a very discerning palate... If he described a dish as 'rather bland' I knew it would not be appreciated by the average English eater." According to Del Conte, the Italian condiment company Sacla increases the quantity of garlic in its pesto destined for Britain. Contrary to popular belief, she says, "the Italian use of garlic is very moderate".

“Peperonata, a southern stew of pepper, onion and tomato, "is now popular everywhere... Excellent with a plain frittata.
If any is left over, it makes a delicious sauce for spaghetti".