Peppers have been grown for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until Christopher Columbus brought them back from the Americas that they were introduced into Europe. Always loving a bit of food trivia, we also found out that botanically speaking, they’re actually a fruit. Here we created a dish that combines flavour with fantastic texture and check out our Fresh Tip* for shredding carrot for your salad. Great food, useful techniques and a wealth of pub quiz knowledge. It’s a pretty action-packed dinner.
The quantities provided above are averages only.
Boxes and ingredients are packed in facilities that handles Peanut, Nuts, Sesame, Fish, Crustaceans, Milk, Egg, Mustard, Celery, Soya, Gluten and Sulphites. Due to the war in Ukraine, it has been necessary to substitute sunflower oil with rapeseed oil in some products without a label change. The FSA have advised that allergic reactions to rapeseed oil are rare.
1
Red Pepper
1
Yellow Pepper
½
Celery Stick
½
Cucumber**
1
Chicory
1
Red Onion
2
Pistachios
3
Carrot**
½
Vegetable Stock Pot
1
Couscous
4
Flat Leaf Parsley**
2
Grated Hard Italian Style Cheese**
½
Balsamic Vinegar
1
Sunflower Seeds
Salt
Pepper
Pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees. Cut the peppers in half lengthways through the stalk and remove the core. Roughly chop the celery, cucumber and the chicory then finely dice your red onion. Finally, crush (or finely chop up) the pistachios.
Rub 1⁄2 tsp of olive oil into each pepper half and sprinkle on a pinch of salt and pepper. Put them into the oven on the top shelf for 20 mins. They’ll soften up and go a little crispy at the edges.
Cook your red onion in a pan on medium heat with 1 tbsp of olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper. You only want to stew the onion rather than brown it off, so keep an eye on it.
Here’s a great trick for shredding a carrot*. Peel it and then make lots of slices along it lengthways, without cutting right through it. Now use your vegetable peeler and pull it across the carrot to produce thin strands. Alternatively, you can always grate it.
Add 250ml of water together with half of the stock pot, to the pan containing your stewed red onion. When the water comes to the boil pour in the couscous, put a lid (or a plate) on top and then leave the pan off the heat for 10 mins.
Take the peppers out of the oven and turn the grill to medium- high. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and add in 2 tbsp of chopped parsley. Fill each pepper with the couscous, top this with the pistachios and the cheese and then put them under the grill to brown them off.
Mix together the cucumber, celery, carrots and chicory with a tbsp of parsley for your salad. Drizzle on a tsp of balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper, then toss everything together.
Scatter the sunflower seeds and remaining parsley over the peppers and couscous and serve with copious amounts of food trivia.