Basque Piperade Sauce
Boonville Barn Collective
4 cups
15 minutes
35 minutes
Basque
Sauce
Piperade is used in many different capacities. We like to use it as a richer pasta sauce, as the base sauce on pizza, or add a big spoonful over a grilled pork chop, ham steak, or sausage. It is also great with omelets and frittatas, or even spooned onto a thick slice of toast. In the Basque culture, the sauce has a way of not quite fitting into any food category as it can be a sauce, the main dish, the side dish, or an appetizer. If you aren’t a meat eater, you can omit the bacon no problem.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup bacon, cut into ¼ inch pieces
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 2 mixed sweet peppers, thinly sliced (include one green pepper as per tradition!)
- 1 sprig rosemary, stripped and chopped
- 1 sprig thyme, stripped and chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ cup white wine
- 2-3 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
- 1 Tbsp Piment d’Ville
- Salt
- Olive oil
Directions
- Heat a medium dutch oven over medium heat. Once warm, add bacon to pot and cook until chewy, but not crispy. Spoon bacon out of the pan and reserve in a bowl for later.
- Return dutch oven to stove with rendered bacon fat still in the pan. Over medium heat, add minced garlic and onions and cook for a few minutes. If the bacon wasn’t very fatty and you need more fat in the pan, add some olive oil.
- Add Piment d’Ville, salt, peppers, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. Cook until onion is translucent. Add white wine and cook for a few more minutes. Add tomatoes.
- Simmer until sauce has thickened to the consistency of a pasta sauce, about 10-15 minutes. Add bacon back to sauce and season with salt to taste.
- Serve spooned over a pork chop, a ham steak, or a sausage, over an omelet, as a pasta sauce, the base for a pizza, or any other way you can think of.
