Roasted red pepper with walnuts, goat + blue cheese
8 long red marconi peppers
300g goat cheese
125g stilton cheese
3 plump garlic cloves, peeled + minced
juice + zest 1 large lemon
1 tsp french mustard
1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
100g walnuts, toasted
1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
good quality extra virgin olive oil
maldon sea salt flakes
freshly ground black pepper
extra thyme springs, to garnish
Preheat oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
In a bowl combine both cheeses, minced garlic, lemon zest and juice, mustard, chilli flakes, half the walnuts and the thyme leaves. Combine well and season to taste with crushed sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper.
Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a straight 2-3cm nozzle.
Cut the peppers in half length-ways and cut away the white membrane. Pipe the cheese mixture into one half of each pepper, top with the other half. Place on a baking tray and drizzle with a little extra olive oil.
Roast for about 30 - 40 mins or until cooked through and starting to blacken and caramelise.
Serve hot on a platter with remaining walnuts and thyme leaves, along with another good glug of olive oil and a final seasoning of black pepper.
NOTES
You can either cut these peppers in half as per method below, or half cut off the top and pipe the mixture into each whole pepper but you will have the bitter white membrane left inside this way. When you slice the peppers in half and put them in the roasting tray they will slide apart when roasting but this wasn’t an issue for me taste-wise. I just give them a bit of a nudge back into place whilst they are roasting, plus all the cheese gets a bit crispy in the tray.
If you can try to slice them not exactly down the middle, rather 2/3 of the way so one side is much deeper than the other, this will help the filling stay in place. Either way they do taste incredibly good straight out of the oven, even if they aren’t the most perfect looking.