Erica De Mane

Recipe in text below: Roasted Sweet Peppers Filled with Leftover Baccalà Mantecato

This was the first time in two years I had a happy Christmas and New Year’s. I was pretty sure it would be good, because the problems that had plagued the previous two years had lifted.  It felt like such a luxury that I cooked myself silly, not only making too many dishes, but making a lot of each.  As a result I’m a little tired but damned grateful.

When it was all done, I had about three extra cups of Christmas Eve baccalà mantecato, the whipped salt cod that has become a newish family tradition for me. I stuck it in the freezer, thinking I’d deal with it somewhere down the line, but then I got a heavy craving for it the day after New Year’s, so out it came. I also had four twisted red bell peppers. They weren’t ideal for stuffing but were deep red and smelled good, so I decided to stuff them anyway, just shoving the baccalà into all their little nooks.

Taking inspiration from the traditional Basque dish of salt cod stuffed into piquillo peppers—the sweet pointed ones you can buy in jars already roasted—I just winged an Italianized take on that. I was pleased with the way it turned out. If you happen to have baccalà mantecato, or the Provençal version, which is called brandade de Morue, on hand, use it; if you just find this dish as intriguing as I do but need to whip up some creamy salt cod from scratch, here’s a link to my recipe for it.

What I did to get the thing together was split the peppers lengthwise, pulling out their seeds, and drizzle them with a little olive oil and a sprinkling of salt. I then sat them cut-side-up on a pan and roasted them until they were just starting to soften but not yet collapsing, about 15 minutes at 400 degrees. I pulled aside one of the roasted pepper halves to use in the sauce, and then spooned the baccalà into the remaining pepper halves, gave their tops a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of Parmigiano, and stuck them back in the oven, turning it up  a few notches, to roast until their tops were browned (they could have been a touch less browned) and the whole thing was bubbling.

While that was happening, I roughly chopped the saved pepper half and sautéed it in a pan with a little olive oil and a few slivers of garlic. Then I added about a cup of heavy cream, a little salt, and a drizzle of Spanish sherry wine vinegar, and I let that warm through and bubble gently for about a minute or so. Then I poured the sauce into the food processor and whirled it until smooth. The sauce was divine. I can see tossing it with fettuccine.

I served out the sauce onto four plates and placed two peppers on each plate. Actually one plate got only got one pepper, but that one was for me, which was okay, since I’d been eating bits of the baccalà while putting the thing together and was already full. For the final touch I garnished it with freshly chopped thyme and a sprinkling of pimenton d’espelette. A nice little dinner. It felt good to use up leftovers, and it felt good to have peace in the household.

Happy New Year.