Roasted red peppers stuffed with fennel

source: Delia's vegetarian collection


Serves 4 - 6


This delightful combination of flavours makes a very attractive first course. The dish needs lots of really good bread, as there's always a profusion of fragrant juices. If you want to make the peppers ahead of time, cover with foil after cooling but don't refrigerate them, as this spoils the fragrant flavour.


4 large red peppers
2 small bulbs fennel
8 dessertspoons good quality olive oil
400g tin italian plum tomatoes
1 rounded tsp mixed pepper berries
3/4 tsp whole coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
juice 1/2 lemon
finely chopped spring onion to garnish
sea salt
shallow baking sheet


Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C


Begin by slicing each pepper in half lengthways, cutting right through the green stalk end and leaving it intact; through it won't be eaten, it adds much to the look of the thing. Remove all the seeds. Now place the pepper halves on the baking sheet, then drain the tomatoes (you don't need the juice) and divide them into 8 equal portions, placing each portion inside a pepper half.


Next, pare off any brownish bits of fennel with your sharpest knife and cut the bulbs first into quarters and then again into eighths, carefully keeping the layers attached to the root ends. Now put them in a saucepan with a little salt, pour boiling water on them and blanch them for 5 minutes. Then drain them in a colander and as soon as they're cool enough to handle, arrange 2 slices in each pepper half. Sprinkle 1 dessertspoon olive oil over each one, using a brush to spread the oil around the edges and sides of the peppers. Next, lightly crush the pepper berries, coriander and fennel seeds with a pestle and mortar, or rolling pin and bowl, sprinkle these evenly all over the fennel and peppers and finish off with a grinding of sea salt. 


Then bake the peppers for approximately 1 hour on a high shelf in the oven until they are soft and the skin wrinkled and nicely tinged with brown.  After removing them from the oven, sprinkle the lemon juice all over, cool and serve, garnished with a little finely chopped spring onion.