Rachel Roddy’s recipe for red peppers stuffed with orzo, tuna, capers and herbs | Italian food and drink

Simply past the arduous rush of Viale Marconi, within the quieter Through Gerolamo Cardano, is a well-liked bakery known as Albanesi il forno delle meraviglie, that means “the oven [or bakery] of wonders”. Established in 1959 by Aldo Albanesi, and now run by his sons Adriano and Alessandro, Albanesi is wondrous additionally for its dimension. Behind an 11-window shopfront lies nearly 500 sq m of store flooring, and a small maze of laboratories during which nearly every thing that may be made is made: bread, pizza, pies, truffles, biscuits, recent egg pasta, sauces, baked pasta and different dishes which can be able to eat. The snake of glass-fronted counters additionally maintain cheese, different dairy merchandise, cured meats, and greens and olives preserved in varied methods, whereas the cabinets are full of on a regular basis provisions of fine and sensible high quality. This can be a store with one thing for everybody.It additionally sells acini di pepe, a tiny pasta formed like peppercorns and made from durum wheat, and pastina, one other small pasta used largely in soups or for stuffing into greens. Acini di pepe was the explanation we first visited the store six years in the past, on the advice of a colleague, and at a time after I was writing a e-book about pasta and due to this fact attempting to get my palms on as many shapes as potential. On that first go to I purchased stelline (stars), alfabeto, puntine (dots) and risoni, in fact, which is just about the identical form as orzo, solely not known as orzo in Italy, as a result of that phrase means “barley”.I’m repeating myself, I do know, after I say that luggage of pastina are essentially the most satisfying luggage of pasta to take from the shelf and transfer round in your hand, as a result of they slide in a lot the identical manner as a beanbag does when it meets a bum. I additionally like measuring out small pasta shapes, raining them into the dimensions or, in case you are certain sufficient, straight right into a pan of boiling water. To make this week’s recipe, you want 300g of any small pasta form (peppercorns, stars, letters, factors, orzo) to fill eight purple pepper boats. You additionally must par-cook the pasta for half the beneficial cooking time, then drain very nicely and unfold out, if potential: you don’t need it to proceed cooking, as a result of it has to spend one other 40 minutes within the oven.The peppers could be eaten immediately, however they’ll sit fortunately for hours, days even; simply preserve them within the fridge if the wait is longer than a couple of hours, and keep in mind to take them out prematurely. They’re wondrous eaten at room temperature (or rapidly reheated), particularly after a protracted day.Pink peppers filled with orzo, tuna, capers and herbsServes 44 medium purple or/and yellow peppers, all even in size300g orzo, or different very small pasta shapeExtra-virgin olive oilButter1 purple onion, peeled and diced1 garlic clove, peeled and minced1 handful recent parsley, minced1 medium-sized tomato, or a number of cherry tomatoes, finely chopped100g tuna packed in olive oil, drained1 heaped tbsp small capers2 anchovy fillets, mincedCut the peppers in half lengthways via the stalks, scrape out the seeds and trim away any white pith inside. Boil the orzo in salted water for a half the beneficial cooking time (if it suggests, say, 10 minutes, prepare dinner it for less than 5), then drain nicely.Working in a frying pan, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a little bit of butter, then fry the onion and garlic till mushy. Add the par-cooked orzo, parsley, tomato, tuna, capers and anchovies, then style and season with salt as wanted (it most likely gained’t want a lot) and generously with black pepper.Fill the pepper boats nearly to the brim with the orzo combination and prepare them snugly in an appropriate baking tray. Spoon three tablespoons of water and three tablespoons of oil into the underside of the trat, cowl loosely however utterly with foil, and bake for 40 minutes, eradicating the foil for the final 10 minutes. Earlier than serving, end by zigzagging every pepper with a little bit of olive oil, or spooning over some melted butter and anchovies, or thinning some basil pesto with extra-virgin olive oil, spooning that over the peppers and topping every half-pepper with a basil leaf.