Pipérade

Peppers cooked down for forty minutes until they are a jam, with the eggs stirred in off the heat so they stay loose.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg. Vegetarian only if you leave out the optional pork.

Ingredients

• 6 green peppers, in strips
• 2 onions, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon piment d'Espelette, or mild chilli and paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 8 eggs, beaten
• salt
• 4 slices cured ham, to serve, optional

Method

1. THE PEPPERS ARE COOKED DOWN FOR FORTY MINUTES BEFORE THE EGGS. Not softened -- reduced to a thick jam with no free liquid left in the pan. Peppers hold a great deal of water, and water added to beaten egg gives you a weeping grey scramble sitting in a puddle. Forty minutes is also where the flavour is: the peppers go from vegetal to sweet.
2. THE EGGS GO IN OFF THE HEAT AND ARE STIRRED, NOT SET. The pan comes off, the beaten egg goes in, and the residual heat does the cooking while you stir slowly. Back on the burner it becomes an omelette with peppers in it, which is a different and lesser dish. It should pour, not slice.
3. A SPOONFUL OF THE PEPPER MIXTURE IS KEPT BACK before the eggs, because once they are in, the dish is one colour. Spooned on top, it says what is underneath.
4. GREEN PEPPERS, NOT RED, and this is worth saying because red are sweeter and easier to find. Green are slightly bitter and that bitterness is what stops forty minutes of reduced vegetable being cloying.
5. Oil in a wide heavy pan. Onions and a good pinch of salt, softened 10 minutes without colouring.
6. Garlic in for 1 minute.
7. Pepper strips added, the pan covered, and cooked 15 minutes until they collapse.
8. Tomatoes, bay and the piment added. Lid off.
9. Cooked over a medium-low heat 25 to 30 MINUTES, stirred now and then, until it is thick and a spoon drawn through leaves a channel that does not fill with liquid.
10. Bay leaf out. Tasted for salt.
11. 2 TABLESPOONS LIFTED OUT and set aside.
12. The pan taken OFF THE HEAT. The beaten eggs poured in and stirred slowly with a wooden spoon, 1 to 2 minutes, until just thickened and still glossy and loose.
13. The reserved peppers spooned over the top. Served at once with the ham laid alongside, briefly warmed in a dry pan, and bread.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes