Ingredient of the week: Hatch chilis

Love ’em or hate ’em, it’s pepper season.

While Thierry Rautureau is scared of chili peppers and doesn’t understand why anyone would enjoy their mouth on fire, Tom Douglas says he loves this time of year for peppers.

Tom likes to get a cart load of hatch chilis, the ‘ingredient of the week’ and make a good peppernada.

“They just add some ‘get up and go,'” he says.

To start, Tom says you open up the chilis, take out the seeds, and then get cooking. If you’re Thierry, you also remove the skin or roast them.

“You can’t make me eat a green pepper with skin on it,” says the French chef, who believes the closer you get to the Equator, the hotter food you probably enjoy. Since France isn’t so hot, neither is the food.

Tom leaves the skins on and says it’s probably why his pepper dishes are a little waxy.

For a peperonata, Tom uses a 10 gallon pot and throws in:
3/4 cut up peppers
1/4 Chanterelle mushrooms
anchovies (canned are fine or tubes of paste)
tomato paste
garlic
olives
capers

Cook it down so it dries out a little bit and you get a chunky salsa of peperonata. Tom puts it in little bags and uses it all winter long for appetizers when guests come over. Warm it up and throw some parsley on top.

Read more about New Mexico’s Hatch Valley Chile Festival.

Find more Seattle Kitchen here and listen to a special edition of Thierry Rautureau and Tom Douglas at 8 p.m. on Saturday on 97.3 KIRO FM.