Roasted Pepper Salad

Peppers and mushrooms

1. It doesn’t matter much which peppers you use, but green ones have a special taste, slightly bitter and pleasant. It adds a subtle note to the roasted pepper salad that will pleasantly surprise you at lunch. Choose large, meaty peppers with thick walls. Ideally, roasted pepper should make up about half of the salad’s total volume.

   

   For a piquant kick I suggest adding a small fresh hot pepper, using all or part of it as you like. For the onion, use any mild one available: white salad onion or a “Yalta” onion. Be sure to include fresh dill and parsley, and, for a special flavor, a few sprigs of thyme.

   

2. Roast the bell peppers until the skin is black, ideally over an open flame: on a grill or over a gas burner. While they are still hot, put them in a pot or a large frying pan and cover with a lid. In 15-20 minutes the peppers will become even softer and cool down, and the charred skin can easily be peeled off by hand without fear of burns. Peel the peppers and remove the seeds, cut the flesh into large slices and put them in a big salad bowl.

   

3. Fry the champignons. Wash the mushrooms and clean off any remaining substrate. If they are large, cut them into 2-4 pieces; leave smaller ones whole. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the champignons over medium heat, stirring constantly, without a lid. Frying takes about 5 minutes; the mushrooms should start to brown before they release their liquid. You need to fry the mushrooms, not stew them.

   

4. Let the fried mushrooms cool a little and mix them with the sliced roasted pepper. Since the pepper and mushrooms are prepared at the same time, by this point all the components will have cooled to room temperature.

   

Putting the salad together

1. Cut the onion, herbs, garlic and hot pepper. Peel the salad onion and cut it into strips. Pick all the leaves from the parsley and dill sprigs, throw away the stems and chop the leaves finely with a knife. Peel the garlic, as much as you like, and also chop it finely with a knife. Don’t grate it, as there will be too much garlic juice. Remove the seeds and inner membranes from the hot pepper, since they give the most heat, while the pepper itself may be quite mild. The hot pepper can be cut any way you like: rings, slices, or chopped with a knife.

   

2. Add all the cut ingredients to the peppers and mushrooms in the salad bowl. Pick the leaves from the fresh thyme sprigs and add them to the salad. Season with salt and black pepper and, if you like, add a quarter teaspoon of coarsely ground dried sweet red pepper.

   Thyme is a spicy, aromatic herb. Its flavor is easy to notice and goes well with vegetables and stewed meat. Many people confuse savory and thyme, thinking they are the same thing. They are different herbs, though they belong to the same family.

   

3. Sprinkle the salad with 1 tsp of wine vinegar, stir and put the salad bowl in the refrigerator for a quarter of an hour so the salad absorbs the spices and cools a little. It shouldn’t be chilled much; it is enough for the salad to be slightly cooler than room temperature.

   

Serving

1. Before serving, arrange the roasted pepper salad in salad bowls or on small ordinary dinner plates, the kind often used for cold appetizers. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil (2 tbsp) over it and garnish with sprigs of herbs.

   

   Serve the roasted pepper salad with fried mushrooms and herbs as an appetizer at the start of a meal, or as part of composed salads or appetizer platters. The spicy salad goes well with shashlik and fried meat, and makes a fine side dish. If you like, you can always make the green pepper salad less hot, or leave out the hot pepper altogether, or add other ingredients.