Jan

Recipe Review: Meze Platter with Hummus, Cucumber Salad, Roasted Red Peppers, Artichokes, and Olives

This is a collection of several easy recipes from Bon Appetit magazine, from which you can pick and choose to create a platter of Mediterranean appetizers. There is home-made hummus made from blending chickpeas, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and spices. The cumin and paprika are a nice addition, and the raw garlic gives the hummus some bite. There is a simple cucumber salad with sliced cucumbers, non-fat Greek yogurt, feta, and oregano. I roasted some red peppers and also served store-bought marinated artichoke hearts, olives, and toasted pita bread. There is a shrimp salad recipe too, but I skipped this since I was serving shrimp as a main course.

Link to recipes here.

12 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

Recipes

Bon Appetit magazine/hummus/mediterranean/meze platter/roasted red peppers

Jan

How to Roast Red Peppers

Roasting red peppers enhances their sweetness and transforms their texture. They are good as part of an appetizer platter, salad, or sandwich. Sweet red, yellow, or orange peppers are better for roasting than green peppers, which are too bitter.

I used to roast peppers whole in the oven under the broiler, turning several times to evenly roast the peppers all over. However, I recently learned this technique from The New Best Recipe from America’s Test Kitchen where the peppers are flattened and roasted on one side, which is much more even and efficient. After roasting, the peppers are placed in a sealed container that steams the peppers and loosens the skin for removal.

1. preheat the broiler

2. cut off the top of the pepper.

3. cut out the core of seeds

4. make one cut along the side of the pepper from the top to the bottom of the pepper

5. flatten the pepper and remove any remaining ribs and seeds

6. place pepper skin side up on a foil-lined baking sheet and put in the oven about 4-6″ from the broiler

7. roast until skin is mostly well charred, about ten minutes

8. put the roasted peppers in a covered container, which traps the steam and helps loosen the skin

9. once cool, the roasted pepper skins can now be easily taken off, and the peppers can be used in any dish

I used the roasted red peppers in a Mediterranean Meze appetizer platter.