Bell peppers
Red and yellow bell peppers are fully ripened green peppers — and August is when they arrive in abundance. The color change takes weeks on the plant, which is why they cost more and why they taste completely different. The bitterness is gone. What's left is sweet, thick, and worth roasting.
How to choose it
- Fully red or fully yellow — no green patches
- Firm and heavy for their size
- Glossy skin without soft spots
- The thicker the walls, the better for roasting
Buy this much: 3–4 peppers for the week. Two go into the house flavor; the rest go into meals.
Red and yellow peppers cost more than green because they've spent longer on the plant. In August, supply increases and prices tend to soften slightly.
During the week
- Charred into the pepper sauce
- On the sheet pan with drumsticks
- Charred in strips for the charred plate
- Raw in a rice bowl
On a weekend
As the pepper sauce, spooned beside the pork chops.
One thing worth learning
A fully red bell pepper and a green bell pepper are the same vegetable at different points of ripeness. The green one was picked early. Weeks more on the plant produce the color, the sweetness, and the complete absence of that grassy bitterness. This is also why charring works so well on red peppers — there's actual sugar to caramelize.