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July 31, 2006
My Favorite Fresh Basil Recipe
My dear friend Zeynep just bought some basil plants, so in honor of them I will post my favorite fresh basil recipe. It's a variation on a recipe I got out of Great Good Food by Julee Rosso, a cookbook my dad gave me when I was 21 that I must have read five hundred times.
Peppers stuffed with basil, tomato and chevre (aka goat cheese):
Take three innocent bell peppers and chop their heads off. Reserve the heads. Remove the pepper guts and seeds and compost them, or feed them to your cat.
Take the tastiest tomates you can find and chop them, not too finely. Into the pepper bowls place evenly distributed fingerfulls of tomatoes, fresh basil (chopped or torn) and goat cheese. Be sure to lick your fingers to clean off any remaining goat cheese.
Drizzle a small amount of tarragon white wine vinegar into the top of the peppers and replace the heads so that each pepper has a lid. Lovingly place the peppers in a baking dish and open a bottle of chardonnay or other dry white. (Actually, you should have opened the bottle and started drinking a glass while you were preparing the peppers. That's what we call "cooking with wine.") Splash the wine into the baking dish, being sure to wet the pepper heads, such that the peppers are wading in about a quarter to a half inch of wine (this is how you make it up to them for cutting their heads off.) Drip just another drop or two of the tarragon vinegar into the winey wading pool and place in the oven on about 350 for about 45 minutes.
Keep checking on the peppers every ten or so minutes to
a) make sure they're not getting too drunk and doing something they'll regret
b) make sure their heads aren't burning
c) splash more wine into their hot tub in case it's drying out. the peppers should always be standing in wine. Nice work if you can get it!
The peppers are ready to remove from the oven when they're looking light green and wrinkly, but they should not be brown, black, or otherwise burnt. If you'd prefer, you can even undercook them a bit for crispier peppers, but I like them quite oozly.
For a lower cal version, you can use fat free ricotta instead of goat cheese, but be sure to mix the FFR with a little garlic powder and half-salt to punch up its flavor, and don't expect it to rival the divine chevre.
I am going to send this recipe to Christine in hopes that she will give me more fresh basil from her garden.
Posted by april at July 31, 2006 3:16 PM
Comments
Even though I just finished dinner, the pepper/basil/tomato/wine dish made me hungry. For the first time this year, gourmet bunnies age my basil plants but fortunately our wonderful co-op has lots. Also I adore chevre. So this moved to the top of my list.
I am learning so much from you about healthful cooking and I'm inspired to finally go over the edge and go veg.
I don't know if mint is a no no for Cronnies but if you can find pennyroyal, it's a very meaty mint with a lovely chocolaty bouquet. It's reputed to be an abortificant so should be used judiciously but it's very very good in entrees.
Posted by: Rachella at July 31, 2006 6:53 PM
My newly acquired basil plants, ginger and clove, would like to thank you since this is the first time their origin/their ancestors was mentioned in a recipe that is not a pesto sauce.
They smell wonderful and are a great fly repellant and I just love them. Thank you April, for being so nice to the basil family in your recipe.
Posted by: istanbulwitch at July 31, 2006 7:09 PM
What a wonderfully written recipe! Not only does it sound delicious, but I really admire your style? By any chance do you have a cookbook of your own out? I will buy it and read every page if you do!
Posted by: Kat at July 19, 2008 6:31 PM