Peperonata

Peperonata, let's talk about it properly. This is not a salad, this is sweet pepper, onion and tomato, cooked slowly in olive oil until they give up and turn soft and sweet. Why slow? Give it a fierce heat and the edges scorch before the inside softens — you end up with charred bits and raw bits in the same spoonful. Slow heat, and nobody fights, everything settles into the oil together.

How to choose it, if you're buying it ready-made: look at the colour — it should be glossy from the oil, whatever shade the peppers gave it, red, yellow or a mix, that's fine. Smell it. Sweetness first, onion and tomato underneath, nothing burnt, nothing harsh. Touch it with a spoon — it should fall apart softly, not resist.

Some people say peperonata is just stewed peppers, nothing more. No! Peppers alone, however good, just stew and stay peppers. It's the onion and tomato stewing alongside them, in the same oil, at the same slow pace, that makes it peperonata. Forget that, and you throw everything into a hot pan at once, impatient, stirring too little and too late — and get vegetables cooked unevenly instead of one soft, unified spread.