Pimentos Farcis

Pimentos Farcis (braised rice-stuffed green peppers) teach proportion before seasoning: half-fill them, no more. The rice must have room to swell while the pepper softens around it; crowd the shell and the filling bursts out before either is properly tender. This is the one true thing to know before touching a pan.

The entry assumes a salamander to skin a tray of peppers, a stock never off the fire, and a saucier free to watch the braise while another hand tends the pilaff. At home, a broiler, one small saucepan, and a lidded 30 cm sauté pan do the same work. Brigade quantity becomes twelve peppers because they fit one pan in a snug layer and cook evenly, one cook, one stove, one evening.

The separate rice station and perpetual stockpot are scaffolding and can go. Skinning the peppers, stopping the pilaff halfway, and braising in good stock must stay. When the peppers are supple and olive-glossy and the rice is tender to its center, spoon the reduced stock over them and bring the whole dish warm to the table. When you fill them, stop at halfway and leave the grains loose. That empty space is the dish.