Everyone has heard of, if not made, fried peppers, a summertime standby. They make an appearance at just about every Italian street festival. So this dish can be a bit banal. But Angelina had her own, special way with fried peppers, one that made them especially tasty. Her recipe is simplicity itself, but there are just a few 'tricks' that make it special.
You start by cutting up frying peppers, those light green, elongated peppers known as friggitelli or friarelli in Italian. You cut the peppers in half lengthwise, remove the stems, seeds and white ribbing from the inside of the peppers. Then cut them into strips lengthwise, and cut the strips in half across. You will wind up with strips of pepper about 1 cm wide and 3-4 cm long:
You sauté the pepper strips and some sliced onion in abundant olive oil over moderately high heat until the peppers and onions just begin to caramelize a bit. Then lower the heat, season with salt and pepper, then cover and allow the peppers to simmer until they are quite soft. (Add a few drops of water, if need be, to aid in the softening and avoid any further browning.) When the peppers are almost done, take them off the heat and, still covered, allow them to cool completely. The peppers taste best when made several hours ahead. When you are ready to eat them, just reheat them gently and serve. They are also quite good served at room temperature.
NOTES: Do not be shy with the oil. You need to use a lot of oil to get the right flavor and consistency for this dish. And use olive oil—no other oil will do. You can remove the excess oil before serving if you want a lighter dish.
Angelina's peperonata was made with only a bit of onion—say, about one small onion for every 5 or 6 peppers. The onions should be sliced from top to bottom, with the grain, so they don't 'melt' entirely. You will find recipes where more onion is called for, sometimes in a 1:1 ratio with the peppers, and this makes for a fine dish as well.
Other recipes for peperonata call for red and/or yellow peppers, which are much sweeter, either instead of, or in addition to, the green ones. A peperonata made from all three kinds of peppers does make for a lovely sight. Angelina, being a frugal cook, invariably made her peperonata with the less expensive green peppers.
Many peperonata recipes call for adding a bit of tomato or tomato purée after the initial browning. Angelina sometimes added a splash of vinegar to her peperonata, almost at the end of cooking, for a bit of extra 'zip'. (Ada Boni's version calls for both variations.) I'm not partial to either of these variations, but it's a matter of personal taste. And in La cucina napoletana, Francesconi suggests omitting the onion (as well as the tomato and vinegar) but adding black Gaeta olives, capers, garlic and chopped parsley to the peppers shortly before they're cooked through. She also offers an alternative recipe particularly for frying friarelli in olive oil just with garlic and peperoncino.
Peperonata goes well, of course, with sausages, but it also goes well with just about any roasted or grilled meat you can think of.
