reginelle in salsa di peperoni
reginelle in a red pepper sauce with smoked bacon
Despite appearances, there isn’t a single tomato in this recipe. The red colouring is entirely from the creamed red pepper ‘aivar’ sauce. I’ve written this recipe specifically as a ‘pragmatic’ time saving one using the excellent Pelagonia Aivar char-grilled red pepper sauce. If you can’t get hold of that where you live (I got mine from Waitrose), it’s a slightly longer cooking process to make your own sauce, but more about that later.
Using peppers like this as a base sauce flavour is loads of fun and could open up a whole family of new recipes for you - check out the variation using yellow peppers and sausage meat in the Oil recipe menu.
reginelle in a red pepper sauce with smoked bacon
INGREDIENTS
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2 medium red peppers
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6-8 rashers smoked bacon
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2 jars of red pepper Pelagonia Aivar (Waitrose)
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hot smoked paprika
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large handful kalamata olives
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pecorino or smoked scamorza
PASTA
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400g dry reginelle (Garofalo)
MANTECATURA
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light to moderate
METHOD
Start by dry frying the bacon rashers until they’re pretty crispy, but not burnt. Pat them dry on some kitchen towel to remove the excess fat and then cut them into thin strips, about 5cm long by 5mm wide. Set them aside and begin to roast your peppers on 2 gas rings. If you haven’t got a gas cooker and are therefore incomplete as a cook, cut your peppers into thin strips and fry them in a little olive oil until they’re coloured and slightly dark brown around the edges, but not burnt. Cooking the peppers on a gas stove, keep turning them over the bare gas jet until the whole of the pepper is back and looks like a lump of coal. Absolutely fine if they catch fire, just blow them out and repostiion.
To remove the skin from the charred peppers, plunge them into a bowl of cold water. Make a slit in them with a knife so that the water can get inside but be careful not to scald yourself on any steam trapped inside the peppers. Leave them a minute or so and then when they’re cold enough to touch, simply rub the burnt skin of the peppers off into the water. When you’ve got as much of the burnt skin off, transfer them to a chopping board. Cut them in half, remove the seeds and pith, and then, using the edge of a knife, just scrape them to get rid of any bits of remaining burnt skin. Pat them dry with kitchen roll and cut into then strips, like the ones in the picture.
Boil and cook the pasta until it’s very nearly done - so just past `al dente.` I used Rummo Mafalde / Reginelle, and they take a good amount of time to cook - nothing like the 8 minutes printed on the packaging!
Tip at least a jar and a third of aivar into your sauce wok and add a ladle or two of starchy pasta water. Begin transferring the ribbons of reginelle to the pepper sauce, stirring everything thoroughly while the pasta finishes cooking and gets coated properly in the sauce. Toss. Add the chopped bacon as you do and about half of the charred and chopped peppers. Toss again. Hold the remainder back to garnish.
Just before you serve, add ground hot smoked paprika to taste and salt, and any leftover strips of pepper. The Pelagonia aivar isn’t that salty and will need some livening up. If you have it, grate in some smoked scamorza for an extra layer of smokey flavour, otherwise just finish with some pecorino.
If you’re going to make the aivar sauce from scratch, you’ll need at least another 4-6 medium red peppers, and either char-grill all of them or fry if you have an electric cooker. When they’re cooked, blend to a smooth paste in a food processor with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, to taste.
NB The ready-made Pelagonia Aivar is also 20% aubergine too, if you make your own and just use red peppers you’ll get a more intense peppery taste. To make a slightly less peppery version, chop up a small melanzana and fry it gently in EVO until cooked, perhaps letting it colour a little bit, but not burn. Add the melanzana to the peppers in a food processor and blend everything to a smooth paste, adding salt and pepper as necessaary.
NUTRITION PER SERVING
KCAL: 388
Fat (g): 19.9
Sat Fat (g): 5
Carb (g): 34.9
Sug (g): 7.1
Prot (g): 16.0
Salt (g): 4.1