Background: Cauliflower was the first true vegetable I ever loved and I still love it. It’s a great gateway vegetable because it’s like the potato of the cruciferous family. Once you get under that umbrella, you find acquired tastes like arugula and both true wasabi and the ingredients (horseradish, mustard, greens) for the ubiquitous fake, green paste found in U.S. sushi restaurants. To make the most of this wonder-veg, I’ll give you moves for breaking down cauliflower that yield 4-5 preparations. The mods are particularly important in this move because they add flavor and everyone loves flavor.

1. Get you a big head or cauliflower or two.
2. Get some garlic (Steamed Garlic, roasted garlic, granulated, and even raw garlic work for this move)
3. Get some salt, oil, and butter.
4. Get a microwave-safe bowl, a sheet tray, and a blender.
5. Get a bigish chef’s knife and a cutting board.
6. Remove the leaves and chiffonade them. Set aside.
7. Cut the cauliflower in half from the head through the stem and then cut the halves in quarters.
8. Cut out the stem and the small limbs going to the florets. Get as close to the florets as possible. Do this for all four quarters. Break up the florets with your hands.
9. You should have a pile of nice-looking, relatively even-sized florets, some Dr. Seuss-looking weird stem quarters and some ribbons of leaves.
10. Put the weird looking stem quarters in a microwave save bowl with about an inch of water in the bottom and microwave for, like, forever. I would start with 12 minutes and go from there. You want to be able to pierce the toughest part of the stalk with your chef’s fork. Add water if it’s running low.
11. When it’s totally steamed, let it cool down a bit and prep the florets.
12. Separate the florets in half. Toss one in salt, garlic and oil. Leave the other plain.
13. Start roasting the salted, oiled, garlicked one in the oven or convection oven (yes an air fryer is a convection oven). I would do this as high as 400 degrees because I like a little char on mine. I’ve even been known to broil it to ensure I get the char I want.
14. Now that the nuked stems are cooler (they should still be very warm), put them in the blender. Reserve the steaming water. Start blending and slowly add back the steaming water until you have a nice puree.
15. Adjust the seasoning and purée again.
16. Check the roasting florets.
17. Put the plain half of florets in the bowl that the stems were in and steam them in a less aggressive fashion. I would start at 5 minutes, check, and then go some more. If you are using raw garlic, add it before you steam.
18. When the timer goes off for the steamed heads, the roasted heads should also be done.
19. You should now have roasted cauliflower florets, steamed cauliflower florets, cauliflower purée, a chiffonade of cauliflower leaves, and a bunch of little bits of cauliflower dots that broke off during the processing. Collect and save the little white dots for another preparation. Add garlic where you want it, but don’t add raw garlic at this stage.
20. Serve “Cauliflower Four Ways,” save the components, or do a little of both. Put the purée down on a plate with a spoon and add a pat of butter like you would mashed potatoes. Sprinkle the chiffonade of leaves on top of the cauliflower purée. Add the florets on top, either with both the steamed and the charred ones scattered evenly around or in a yin-yang pattern for picky eaters. Adjust seasoning and serve.

Why It Works:

1. When I’m doing a prep like this, I like to have lots of different kinds of leftovers, so I might do two. Keep in mind, that you can pull out components raw at any stage before cooking and have yourself prepped up for another night. This Cauliflower Four Ways move is more about mise en place than it is about making a showy cauliflower dish (which isn’t really showy until you get to the mods).
2. If using raw garlic, add before in the steaming steps, but after in the roasting steps. The garlic shouldn’t burn in the steaming move, but it will in the roasting move. While char on veggies can be nice, it’s acrid on garlic.
3. Neutral oils are best for this, but if you are vegan, you might want to replace the butter with a flavorful oil.
4. You will be steaming half and roasting half.
5. Your largest chef’s knife, as a general rule for chef’s knives, should be about an inch or two larger than the largest head of cauliflower that you usually buy.
6. A chiffonade is just a think confetti of leaves. Cauliflower leaves are great for practicing your chiffonade technique because they have a celery-like center that stabilizes your knife, they are stackable without folding, and they don’t bruise like basil.
7. You are quartering to expose the stems as much as possible.
8. You actually want a lot of the stems because the puree is so useful. So cut the florets so they have as little stem as possible on them. This will also help them cook more evenly as the stems are tougher.
9. Taste the leaves raw. Imagine them just warm and see if you like them that way. If not, put aside for stir fry. You are now serving cauliflower three ways.
10. You know your microwave better than I do, so adjust your timing accordingly.
11. You want these to be warm, but not so hot that the water is going to burn you or the steam that builds up in the blender causes the lid to blow off.
12. You will season the plain ones later.
13. Don’t start out by broiling. The timing of this move is important. If this is the first time you’ve done this, you might even start at 350 degrees. You can always broil at the end to catch up.
14. The steaming water has nutrients in it, so don’t waste it. But also, don’t add so much back that you’ve got a watery mess. You are looking for thin-ish-mashed potatoes.
15. You can add butter, garlic, and any other seasonings you want to the purée at this stage.
16. If they are done, you can turn off the oven and leave them in there while you finish the other preps.
17. Don’t make another bowl dirty. If you are using something other than raw garlic, add it after the steaming.
18. Adjust the seasoning for the steamed florets.
19. The little dots that litter your cutting board and countertop should be saved. I scoop them up with a spatula or bench scraper and save them for a rice pilaf move.
20. Every component of this dish can be reheated for serving if it got cold while you prepped the others. Also, feel free to just make cauliflower one way and save the raw, already-broken-down components for another week. They will last several days in the fridge and indefinitely in the freezer.

Mods:

1. Add crushed pistachios to the top of the dish.

2. Add your favorite white cheese to the puree.

3. Add your favorite chilies to the mix. Add dried chilies or chili crunch to the roasted cauliflower and add roasted chilies to the puree.

4. Add crushed black peppercorns to the roasted cauliflower.

Background: When I was a kid, we made mac ‘n’ cheese from the box with the radioactive orange pouch of powdered cheese. When I was a young adult, I learned how to make a Mornay sauce. I learned this move in between those other two moves. It’s the one I do most often. It’s the easiest, most stable, and most versatile.

1. Get some veggie noodles or whatever your kids (and you) like.
2. Make Buttered Noodles.
3. Get some (at least 1 pound) high-quality white American cheese that isn’t individually wrapped. The latter part is especially important.
4. Get some milk.
5. Get a microwave safe bowl.
6. Open the American cheese package and cut through the whole stack of slices, first in strips, then in cubes.
7. Separate the cubes, to the extent you feel like it, into the glass bowl. Add a forth of a cup of milk to the bowl for every pound of cheese.
8. Microwave for 3 minutes.
9. Stir with a fork.
10. Microwave for 3 minutes.
11. Stir with a fork.
12. Add more milk if necessary.
13. Pour over noodles or add noodles to sauce, depending on your quantities of each.
14. Keep extra sauce in the fridge for up to 3 weeks (probably longer, honestly, unless you use it to make queso. )

Why It Works

1. You are training them to not be afraid of the word veggie, not actually feeding them something healthy.
2. If you are doing the Buttered Noodles move on the same night, you can use the same method as you did in steps 9-14 in that move to make cheese sauce instead of Cacio e Pepe. If not, just pour over refrigerated buttered noodles.
3. If you are unsure what that means, go to a fancy grocery store and look in the cheese case and try to find something that isn’t made by Kraft and isn’t individually wrapped. The slices should be offset for ease of peeling instead of having plastic between them. If you can’t find that, Havarti makes an excellent substitute. If you are looking for the justification for using American cheese when, clearly, it’s the lowest in the hierarchy of cheeses, then read J. Kenji López-Alt’s meatloaf analogy. If’s fine. Just try mod #1 below.
4. Whatever milk you have on hand is fine. This is really just to loosen the sauce.
5. High sides are good for this move. You can mix some noodles for the kids in the glass bowl and fancy up your own in the pot.
6. This is why the “not individually wrapped” part is important.
7. The amount of milk here is an estimate. If your result is too loose, add more American cheese and zap it again. Adjust your notes.
8. Again, just an estimate. What you don’t want is the cheese turning brown anywhere, especially at the side of the bowl. I should say “what your kids don’t want” is the cheese turning brown. Adults know that’s just Dr. Maillard’s thing happening in the bowl. That’s where the flavor is.
9. So, you could whisk it. But after doing this for the 57th time, you’ll probably fork it.
10. Don’t forget to check for browning.
11. Why a fork? For the same reason you fork your scrambled eggs: Because your dishwasher is always full and your sink is usually full of dirty dishes and there’s a good chance that two of your whisks are dirty and the other one fell down in that space between the fridge and the bottom cabinets. It’s fine. Use a fork. It takes up less space in the dishwasher anyway.
12. Remember you can always add more milk, but you can only add as much cheese as you’ve got. Cheese is the limiting factor here. You could make this with water or chicken stock if you had to.
13. It might be less of a “Pour” and more of a “Use a rubber spatula to coax the sauce out of the bowl and gently fold around noodles.”
14. Pro-tip that’s probably going to be it’s own compound move at some point: Add pico to leftover sauce and you’ve basically got queso.

Mods:

1. Steam the heck out of some frozen cauliflower…like really blast it in the microwave before you do this move. Then blend it up really really good. See if you can replace some or all of the milk with cauliflower purée and get it past your kids. Over the years, gradually increase the size and amount of cauliflower chunks until they are eating cauliflower cheese casserole.
2. Top a portion for yourself with some of your own favorite cheeses like brie, bleu cheese, Parm, Asiago, Manchego, havarti, etc.
3. Add crispy fried onions or shallots to the top!

Background: My grandparents had a ceramic trivet with this supposedly Spanish proverb: “Four persons are wanted to make a salad. A spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counselor for salt and a madman to stir it all up.” That sounds like it will translate to a move.

1. Get a spendthrift’s worth of oil.
2. Get a miser’s worth of vinegar.
3. Get a counselor’s worth of salt.
4. Mix like a madman.

Why It Works

1. Oil is expensive, and salad dressing is mostly oil. So let’s say 60% of your dressing is going to be oil.
2. Vinegar is cheap, and you can’t put too much in. So let’s say 30% of your dressing is going to be vinegar or some other acid.
3. Salt to taste. Ok, but whose taste, though? The counselor doesn’t salt to his own taste. He considers who is going to be eating the salad, what it is being served with, and what is the overall dining context. Then he seasons the salad. I assume that he and the madman butt heads about the rest of the seasonings.
4. The counselor walks away in frustration and disgust as the madman suggests putting everything he can get his hands on into the dressing. (Stinky “preserved” fish? Really?) This is actually just a ploy to get the counselor out of the kitchen so the madman can work his magic. Somehow it works.

Mods:

1. Vary the vinegar. Try balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar. Come to think of it, try red wine and white wine. I’ve even made vinaigrette with Champagne. (Okay, it was actually sparkling wine.)
2. Vary the oil. Try first stone cold pressed extra virgin olive oils. (That’s why it takes a baller to make a salad.)
3. Vary the sources of salt. There are tons of different kinds of salt. But you can also use soy sauce, miso paste, anchovies, seaweed, katsuobushi, liquid aminos, Parmesan (or other hard salty cheeses), etc.
4. Vary the madman’s ingredients. I feel like both salad dressings and salad need three basic things and at least a couple wildcards. Something that makes it seasonal. Something that makes it local. Something that makes it unique.

*Except for all other dressings not based on vinegar and oil.

Background: Growing up, my mom’s go to marinade was Wish-Bone Italian Dressing mixed with soy sauce. It’s a brilliant move, really. It has everything you could want in a marinade: distilled vinegar, water, oil, sugar, salt, garlic (dried), onion (dried), red bell peppers (dried), rosemary extract, yeast extract, lemon juice concentrate. However, it also has some things I don’t care for like “natural flavor,” xanthan gum, “spice” (whatever that is) and annatto extract (color). I know that some of those are naturally occurring things, but, frankly, I can do just fine without them for a marinade. Also, I try to limit the number of processed foods and condiments I buy. That said, everyone needs a few quick go-to marinades so I’ve outlined one below. I’ll outline a bunch of other marinades that come from this basic principle in mods section below. This move is, of course, a nod to my mom and a rip off of her Wish-Bone Soy Sauce marinade.

Soy Sauce and a Bunch of Other Stuff That I Might Have Taken Directly From the Ingredients of a Certain Salad Dressing Because You Can’t Copyright a Recipe Marinade

1. Get three parts neutral oil and one part distilled white vinegar.
2. Add to that two parts soy sauce.
3. Add turbinado sugar to taste.
4. Season to taste with dried garlic, onion, and whatever other dried spices you like.
5. Add some squeezes of citrus juice.

Why It Works:

1. The oil will protect the food while the vinegar will start to break down the food. The oil also evenly distributes the flavor. Because you are going to be cooking the food, which also breaks it down, the oil is arguably more important so there’s more of it. Leaving the oil out would cook the food it does in ceviche.
2. This is where the salt and umami comes from. I use extra dark soy sauce because it’s clingy and rich and helps the browning process.
3. The sugar just rounds out the flavor. I don’t always use it. Needless to say, when you are adding things to marinades to taste, it should be before you put the raw meat in it.
4. Dried herbs and granulated garlic and onion are tools and nothing to be ashamed of.
5. Like the sugar, this is to round out the flavor. The vinegar is doing the heavy lifting, acid-wise. The reason is economics. You want to submerge the thing in the marinade. Citrus juice is more expensive than vinegar.

Mods:

1. Swap out the neutral oil with sesame oil and the vinegar with rice wine vinegar and you have a marinade with more Asian flavor profiles. Season accordingly.
2. Swap out the soy sauce with liquid aminos for a less-Asian, gluten-free, unfermented marinade.
3. Use just the soy sauce for meats that don’t need tenderizing like the Pork Tenderloin in Soy Sauce move.
4. Lose the vinegar and add tequila, lime, and jalapeñoes for a great Tex-Mex marinade.
5. Swap out both the oil and the vinegar with water to make a brine-based marinade. (Great for birds and shellfish.)
6. Add the odds and ends of onions, fresh herbs, and whatever other aromatic scraps you have lying around.
7. Instead of dried herbs and spices, consider going outside and grabbing what’s growing around you. Where I live, I can forage for wild onions, lemon bee balm (similar taste to oregano), rosemary, and many others. I usually have at least sage, cilantro, and fennel growing in the garden.
8. Add enzymatic ingredients to help tenderize especially tough meats. Good options are pineapple, papaya, yogurt, buttermilk, and ginger.

Background: Aioli was traditionally just an emulsion of garlic and oil. Where I live, we have pecan trees everywhere. I like to add pecans to my aioli to make a vegan spread that’s a mashup of a nut nut butter and a traditional aioli.

1. Make or pull out of the fridge some steamed garlic.
2. Get some shelled pecan halves.
3. Let everything sit on the counter for 15-20 minutes.
4. Add equal parts pecan halves and garlic cloves to a food processor.
5. Blend until it is the consistency of chunky peanut butter.
6. Slowly drizzle oil a few drops at a time into the spinning food processor until it is the consistency of warm creamy peanut butter.
7. Season to taste and pulse a few times.
8. Store in the fridge.

Why It Works:

1. You can also use roasted garlic, but the roasted garlic and the pecans together can be bitter.
2. I buy these when they are on sale and store in the freezer. If you do this, add extra time to the next step.
3. When you are doing an emulsion, everything needs to be at room temperature to emulsify.
4. You can adjust this later based on your tastes. You might find, however, that using half and half makes for an easy emulsion because the nut butter helps suspend the oil.
5. You may find that you want to skip the oil step if you like the consistency and there’s enough natural oil in the pecans.
6. When doing an emulsion, the oil has to be added very slowly so that it can be dispersed into the other liquids. Because there are natural oils in the pecans, you probably won’t need that much oil at all.
7. Salt to taste and, if you think it’s on the bitter side, consider adding honey or brown sugar. Blitz again.
8. This should keep for at least a few weeks.

Mods:

1. Add herbs de Provence just before step 6.
2. Add maple syrup at step 7.
3. Add roasted peppers at steps 3 and 4.

Background: I don’t remember where I learned about compound butter, but I think it was while cooking in an institutional catering kitchen that served beurre maître d’hôtel on it’s steaks for “fancy” banquets. Since then, I’ve tried many different combinations for compound butter but the move below is my favorite. I’ll give some alternatives in the mods:

1. Grow some summer squashes and harvest the blossoms before they hit the ground.
2. Grow some cilantro and harvest some leaves before the coriander seeds set.
3. Get a pound of white butter.
4. Get some waxed paper.
5. Let the butter sit for about 15 or 20 minutes.
6. Put the butter in a food processor and pulse it until it’s soft and smooth.
7. Chiffonade the cilantro and squash blossoms.
8. In a bowl with a thick rubber spatula, fold the chiffonade of cilantro and squash blossoms into the butter. Add salt if you want here.
9. Make a cilantro-squash-blossom butter log on the parchment paper, roll up, and twist the ends to compress the butter.
10. Put in the freezer to chill quickly.
11. The day before you are going to serve it, move it to the fridge to soften a bit.

Why It Works

1. Watch out for bees. One time, I found a bee trapped in a closed blossom when I cut into it. If you aren’t into growing squash blossoms, you can try any edible flower: citrus blossoms, clover, daisies, dandelions, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lavender, lilac, mums, nasturtium, pansies, roses, sunflowers and violets. If you aren’t into edible flowers or they are out of season, try a chiffonade of rainbow chard.
2. Cilantro is pretty easy to grow in Central Texas and it’s cheap in the stores. However, if you are one of those cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene people, then try another leafy herb like basil, tarragon, or yarrow.
3. Whiter butter works better than yellow because of the contrast with the ribbons of flowers and herbs.
4. You could use plastic wrap or foil, but these can be annoying to unwrap when frozen.
5. You want to soft enough to get processed by the food processor, but not soft enough to liquefy when blended.
6. Make sure that the food processor blade doesn’t get too hot and cause so much friction that it melts the butter.
7. A chiffonade is just cut ribbons of leafy vegetables or herbs.
8. Completely working the ribbons into the butter should create a pleasing pattern when the butter is sliced.
9. The butter should be still set enough to form into a log. If it’s too melted for that, you could try putting them in to silicon ice pop molds. The log should be the size of a stick of butter, but round. So you should have four them.
10. You can also store three of the four logs in the freezer and put the other in the fridge.
11. Unless you already have one in the fridge.

Mods:

1. Add a dash of lemon, lime, or vinegar for a little acidity.
2. Roll the outside of the log in black pepper for a different look and taste.
3. Try these combinations:
   • Garlic and chive (for potatoes)
   • Basil and oregano
   • Garlic, dill and lemon (for fish)
   • Garlic and tarragon (for chicken)
   • Chimichurri (for beef)
     • red wine vinegar
     • chopped parsley
     • garlic
     • red chilies
     • oregano
     • black pepper

Background: I use a ton of garlic. I use foraged wild garlic/onions. I also rely heavily on roasted garlic from the olive bar at the specialty grocery store for things like the No Cook Pizza Sauce. I use pickled garlic from a local international grocer that specializes in hard-to-find Middle Eastern foods. But I don’t use raw garlic. Unless I buy it from a farmer’s market, any Rocambole garlic, standard purple stripe garlic, or artichoke garlic that comes into my possession goes straight through this process and into the fridge.

1. Buy peeled garlic cloves or peel them yourself if you must. Whatever you do, make sure they are as fresh as possible. I used peeled garlic that is in a plastic container with a lid. Any bulging on the lid suggests that the garlic is past its prime and should be avoided. When you open the container smell the garlic and taste a bight of one. If it tastes off in any way, don’t use it.
2. Get a microwave-safe bowl large enough to fit all the garlic and add the garlic plus two inches of water at the bottom.
3. Microwave the garlic in the water until the water boils. This is about 5 minutes for my microwave.
4. Immediately cover with a lid.
5. Let all the steam naturally dissipate and let it cool down but get it into the fridge or freezer within the hour.
6. Put some in the fridge as is, pickle some with vinegar, and freeze the rest.

Why it works:

1. It’s actually hard to find excellent fresh garlic. I use the microwave, water, and the steam it generates to kind of pasteurize the garlic. This will stop the enzymatic process that makes the garlic go rancid.
2. It helps if it has handles and a lid. I use two small square vintage Corningware dishes with handles and use one for the lid. The handles and the lid are very important, but the move will work without them.
3. You kind of have to watch it until you get the timing dialed in. Every microwave is different. The carryover cooking from the lidded, microwaved dish is where most of the work is done.
4. If you go lidless, you can use a plate to cover. Just make sure it fits snugly and/or weight it down.
5. Once it is cooled, with gentle pressure, you should be able to mash the garlic with a fork in the bottom of the dish without water splashing everywhere. I like my steamed garlic the consistency of roasted garlic, but you can play with the timing to create a firmer result.
6. Use the refrigerated garlic first, then the frozen, then the pickled.

Mods:

1. If you want pickled garlic, skip the microwave and just cover the cloves with vinegar.
2. Blend up a stick of butter with some of the cloves to make garlic butter and preserve the garlic longer.
3. Toss with your favorite herbs before putting in the fridge.

Background: After shoving takeout food in my feelings hole for a couple years during the pandemic, I got curious about eating differently. My kids only ate beige salty foods at the time. Dinner time, which used to be my favorite time of day, became less about cooking something balanced and interesting and more about just slogging through. I needed a new challenge. So I decided to try to eat only plants between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., M-F. Veg stock became central to this challenge. I remembered a few tricks from my days as a restaurant cook and a learned a few new ones. Here are the steps:

1. Get two pounds of cremini mushrooms and chop them coarsely.
2. Put a small amount of oil in a stock pot and sauté the mushrooms.
3. Salt and pepper the mushrooms to taste and stir vigorously.
4. Cut veg for mirepoix or pull the already cut veg you prepped out of the freeze and add to the mushrooms.
5. Sweat your veg in the bottom of the pan for a while on medium to low heat.
6. Pull out all the veg scraps you have from the freezer and add them to the pot.
7. Add any veg you have that’s getting tired in the crisper of your refrigerator.
8. Look around your kitchen for that onion that’s been there a minute and add that.
9. Add your favorite modality of garlic.
10. Throw some bay leaves in there.
11. Cover the vegetables with filtered water and simmer until all the vegetables can be mashed with a chef’s fork.
12. Add a can of tomato paste and whisk until it’s dissolved into the stock.
13. Adjust seasonings.
14. Strain the stock.
15. Use right away or store in the freezer.

Why It Works:

1. Mushrooms are full of umami and cremini mushrooms have more of it than white mushrooms but aren’t as expensive as some exotic mushrooms or dried mushrooms.
2. Cooking the mushrooms brings our more umami.
3. The salt, pepper, oil, moisture, and bits of mushroom agitated by the vigorous stirring will create a fond in the bottom of the pan, which will give your stock more flavor.
4. If frozen, they might splatter a bit.
5. Sweating means you are drawing the moisture out of the veg by heating slowly.
6. While your veg is sweating, it’s a good time to clean out your freezer.
7. Avoid greens. They will make the stock bitter.
8. You are looking for anything that will add more flavor and use up a resource that would otherwise not be used.
9. This step is optional but encouraged.
10. Do bay leaves do anything? If they are fresh, yes. Dried bay leaves are not fresh and, over time, they will lose their flavor. Because every recipe ever only calls for one bay leaf, everyone has a spice jar of expired bay leaves in their spice rack. So it might take more than you think to taste it. Add one more bay leaf each time you make this until you think, “Hmm…That’s too much bay leaf.” Or “Hmmm…I wonder what fresh bay leaf would do.”
11. One way to use this time and energy efficiently is to throw some whole cleaned or peeled vegetables that you want to use cooked in another way. I throw whole peeled carrots in there and pull them out when they are fully cooked. I add garlic and habaneros to make a nice creamy hot sauce. You could boil potatoes in it or steam broccoli in a covered strainer on top. Dense root veg work well here.
12. Like mushrooms, tomato paste is high in umami. But if you add it too early, the concentrated sugars in the paste can burn.
13. At this point, depending on how you season, you could covert it form stock to broth. Stock can be used in anything. Broth is going to have a salt content and flavor profile that narrows its uses. For example, broth will get saltier as it is reduced for a sauce. The addition of Chinese five spice will take it in a different direction than Italian seasoning.
14. I use a chinois for straining. If the fine mesh one is dirty, I use a coarse China cap strainer and strain into another stock pot or pitcher.
15. I make beans with this right away and store the rest in labeled take-out containers in the freezer.

Mods:

1. Add dried mushrooms when you add the water. This will boost the flavor, but it can be expensive. Because I live in a place where it’s miserably hot most of the year, I sun dry mushrooms in the summer for this purpose.
2. Throw a bumper crops of summer squash, zucchini, and tomatoes in there during the summer, if you’ve got them.
3. Add miso paste at the end when you are adjusting the seasonings. This will boost the salt and umami, too, but go easy until you have it dialed in.
4. When I need veg stock but only have a few odds and ends, I use “Better Than Bouillon” vegetable base. Like miso, go easy. It will add umami, but also sodium.

Background: I grow peppers and sometimes I have a bumper crop. Like many moves, this is both a prepped ingredient and a preservation technique. Roasted peppers are a great ingredient to have on hand. It’s not complicated and the same techniques work with any pepper, regardless where it falls on the Scoville scale.

1. Get a bunch of peppers or grab one that’s about to start getting wrinkly.
2. Pick the method of heat that’s most convenient for you:
   • Electric stove
   • Gas stove
   • Broiler
   • Wood fired grill
   • Coals
   • Blowtorch
3. If indoors, turn on the hood.
4. Unless you are broiling or grilling, you want the pepper touching the heat source or the heat source touching the pepper. Turn with tongs until you get all sides of the pepper.
5. If using a thick walled pepper like a jalapeño or bell pepper, completely char the skin of the pepper so that it’s black and flaking off. If using a thinned walled pepper like a habanero, just blister the skin as best you can.
6. Put the peppers directly in a glass bowl and put a heavy plate on top of it.
7. Go about your other prep work.
8. When the peppers are cool enough to handle carefully, make a slit all the way up the side to the stem. You should be able to grab the stem and most of the seeds and remove them in one piece.
9. Open up the destemmed, seeded pepper and scrape the remaining seeds off the flesh with the back your knife.
10. Flip the pepper over to its charred side and scrape the skin off.
11. Leave in large pieces, cut into strips, or dice.
12. Cover with salt and vinegar to pickle or refrigerate or freeze them as they are.

Why It Works

1. It’s best to do this when the peppers are fresh. The flavor is better and the skin comes off better. But if my options were to throw away a pepper in a couple of days or do this move now, I’m going do this move now regardless of wrinkles.
2. The method doesn’t change depending on heat source
   • Place the pepper directly on the coil burner or flattop burner. (I haven’t tried this with induction burners.)
   • Place the peppers directly over the flame. I use a wire rack or grill grate to position them on.
   • Place the peppers directly under the heating element.
   • These last two will change the flavor in nice ways and are my favorite. Any time I fire up the grill, campfire, I use the time before the fire is ready to cook my main meat or veg to flame roast peppers, char corn, or blister tomatoes. Otherwise, I feel like I’m wasting fuel.
   • Put the pepper directly onto coals, caveman style. This is the messiest method, but it works.
   • The blowtorch method could work if you wanted both blistered skin and a fruity raw-ish pepper taste. It’s not going to result in a steamed pepper the way the other methods will eventually.
3. It’s going to get smoky, but I find the smell pleasant.
4. With an open flame on a grill or firepit, it’s ok if the flame touches the pepper. For most live fire applications, cooks want coals, not flame. This might be an exception.
5. If you go too far you will end up burning the flesh of the pepper and the skin. This will result in a pepper that cannot be peeled in that spot.
6. You are using the residual heat from the pepper to steam the skin off and steam the flesh.
7. I don’t think you can go too long on this step unless you leave it in the danger zone (below 140 degrees) for several hours. It can be done in as little as 15 minutes or you can wait an hour.
8. A few seeds left on the pepper is better than rinsing the whole thing in the name of being thorough. That’s washing away flavor. Sometimes I rinse anyway if it’s a really really hot pepper.
9. If you’ve done it correctly, the skin should lay in flat sheet on the cutting board and be easy to cut into strips.
10. Leave some charred skin on for character.
11. Large pieces will let you decide on your final presentation later. Diced peppers will limit you to, well, diced peppers.
12. I like to do refrigerate some, pickle some, and freeze some.

Mods:

1. Because this move is so versatile and simple, the method mods are mostly related to the peppers you pick and your heat source, but if you’ve done this move and you want to put a twist on it, think about one ingredient or seasoning you could add to it that would change the ingredient. Consider the following:
   • Toss in oil and use in a dish right away, maybe something with goat cheese.
   • Add salt and pepper or seasonings to the peppers before you freeze and see how that changes the applications you think of using them for.
   • This method is the basis for many other stuffed pepper recipes like chile relleno. In fact, I think it should be the first step on all stuffed pepper recipes. It doesn’t have to be fried like chile relleno, but if you can’t cut through a stuffed pepper with a fork, then the pepper just becomes a garnish and a vessel for the stuffing and that’s a waste of a pepper.