One on of my favorite dishes is when my chilien wife makes a speciality from her home country “Pimientos Piquillo Rellenos con Carne (Stuffed Smoked Piquillo Peppers with meat)”. As the tast grows in intensity is it almost a requirement that they are to be made a day in advance, the stuffed Piquillo peppers are served as “tapas”, they are creasy delicious.
About Piquillo Peppers
The name piquillo means “little beak”. Traditionally piquillo peppers are grown in Northern Spain and are hand picked then roasted over open fires. The peppers are then peeled, all by hand then packed in jars or tins. The roasting of the pepper gives it a rich, spicy-sweet flavor.
You’ll need
- 3 Jars of Piquillo Peppers
- 4-8 green Olivens
- 1,5 pcs of pork tenderloin
- 3 packets of 60g slices “Jamón ibérico/serrano” (sliced ham of good quality)
- flour, nutmeg, salt and pepper
- Butter
- 2 Onions
- 1 Egg
- 4 gloves of garlic
- Tio pepe jerez (Spanish Brandy) (dry white wine can substitute)
- Italian Pomodoro Sauce
Prepare the meat
The tenderloin is the filet mignon of pork. Soft, succulent, lean and flavorful. Yes, it’s true that our pork has gotten less fatty over the years with a demand for a low fat diet, causing the meat to easily dry when cooked, therefor we need to pay special attention not to overcook the meat. First remove the stringy silver skin from a pork tenderloin, and trim away any fat from the meat. Slice the meat in thin slices and cut the meat into small cubes. Do the same with the ham, slice it up in small cubes.
Make the fillings
you’ll need to finely dice up another onion and two cloves of garlic. Gently fry the onions and garlic in sparse olive oil. spice with salt and pepper, but be careful with the salt. Its is important to keep the mixture as dry as possible. Now fry the meat in the onion mixture, again make sure to fry it with care, rather a little to little than too much, we want to avoid the meat going dry. Now Cool the meat and drain any liquid from it.
Make a bechamel Source and mix it with the meats, now cool the mixture and you are ready to stuff the peppers.
Prepare the source
Slice the onions and the two garlic cloves into fine cubes.
Gently fry the onion and garlic garlic in some extra virgin oil. Add Salt and Pepper. let it reduce, Add some sliced Piquillo and a little Tio Pepe, not to much, you can always add some more later, and now let it reduce again for 15min.
Now add a glass of Pomodoro sauce. Its a high quality sauce with ingredients from Italy. The tomatoes are grown in the Naples region and the sauce is made in Torino, Italy. Because tomatoes grown in Italy are naturally sweet, there is NO added sugar. let it simmer again for 15min. After the source has reduced, Blend it in a blender, and bag it up for the final steps tomorrow.
Serving
Turn the peppers in egg and flour, fry them gently on the pan. Now its time to bring the sauce and pepper together. Due to the amount of Piquillo peppers that I prepared, I chose to bring the peppers and sauce together in the oven. It impares in the visual outcome of the Piquillos, I recommend using less sauce, and gently covering them with spoonful of the Sauce.
The Golden Hour 
Nice recipe