Roast pepper and Bean salad

The ingredients:

  • 4 red peppers, innards removed and heads sliced into a lid
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 20g basil, chopped
  • 20g parsley, chopped
  • 10g mint, chopped
  • 2 tsp dijon mustard
  • 100ml olive oil
  • 40g cornichon, chopped
  • 1 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 400g tin cannlline or similar beans
  • 1 cup (or thereabouts) couscous/bulghur wheat or similar grain
  • Optional: stock cube/lemon/lime juice to flavour the grain

The recipe:

Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Place 4 large peppers in a small roasting tin, trickle them generously with about 4 tbsp of olive oil, bake for 30 minutes, turn them over if required to colour

Using a blender, mix together 20g each of basil and parsley, 10g of mint leaves, 2 tsp of Dijon mustard and 100ml of olive oil. Turn the machine off then stir in 40g of chopped cornichons and 1 tbsp of sherry vinegar.

Boil some water and add to the couscous/bulghur wheat to cook. Add a stock cube or a squirt of lemon juice to favour if required.

Drain a 400g can of cannellini beans, then rinse and add them to the peppers, tossing them in the juices and oil in the roasting tin.

Return the beans and peppers to the oven for a further 15 minutes until the beans are hot and the peppers soft, sweet and their skins slightly blackened.

Serve the peppers with the beans and couscous in a large communal dish at warm to room temperature with the green sauce as dressing.

I like the way the beans cook in the roasting tin, becoming almost crunchy, but sometimes I cook them inside the peppers instead. Cut the peppers in half and roast them, fill the halves with a mixture of beans and couscous  and return to the oven.

Roasted red pepper with cannellini beans and blended herbs