Fermenting things has always been a fascination of mine, be it wine, beer, pickles, or anything else. My last delivery from our vegetable supplier included a bag of slightly older bell peppers that were getting to that wrinkly stage, just with the message, “rather than throw these out, figured you might want them for something”. I was in the midst of writing up those Sichuan pickles a couple of weeks back, so I had pickling on my mind. I started thinking “pickled peppers”, which, with a bit of online diving, led me to several recipes for making a fermented bell pepper sauce. The peppers, a little garlic and onion, and some salt (1½T salt for a liter of water), was all that was needed. I was good to go.

Cut up the peppers in pieces, sliced the onion and garlic, layered them all with some coarse salt in a container.

Topped it off with water and covered it. If you have something to weigh the vegetables down and keep them underwater, put that in, otherwise, just give this a stir each day to move any exposed surfaces below decks. If not, the stuff exposed on top will start to mold, even with a lid on it (which I did put, even though not pictured).

Seven days later, lightly soured peppers. The recommendations ranged from four to ten days, and much of that probably depends on how old your peppers are already. These were falling apart soft and had a nice pickled flavor.

And, into the blender. Don’t put all the brine in, it’ll be too watery. I scooped the vegetables in and pureed them solo. It was kind of thick, so I just added the bring a bit at a time until it hit the consistency of a nice sauce. You can save the brine to add to other pickling mixtures if you want, it’ll give them a head start, or you can even drink it – it’s lightly salty and tangy and has the vegetable flavors. If you’re not going to use the sauce right away, store it in the refrigerator. I’d say no more than a week. It’ll keep fermenting and get vinegary if you let it go more than that, and/or may even start to mold. You could even freeze it.

Just to try it out, tossed with some macaroni and a little bit of grated cheese. Delicious! And, now that I had the flavor profile of the sauce heated up, I started thinking….

Meatballs! But, something maybe a little lighter – I went with chicken meatballs. I ground about a half kilo of chicken breast and an onion together, then mixed in a teaspoon and a half of salt, a beaten egg, a half cup of crumbled feta cheese, and enough breadcrumbs to make the mixture hold together. I think I’d go with a coarser grind the next time, these were a little more like sausage meat. Formed into meatballs, put in an oiled pan, and stuck them in the oven at medium heat.

Because they were a little too ground, they settled a bit and flattened, so not quite as spherical as I’d have liked. After they were starting to brown, I started to flip them over – maybe ten minutes into cooking.

My oven clearly has hot spots where some where browning faster than others.

After another ten minutes cooking, I added the sauce, which I’d already heated up so that it wasn’t like a cold shower on the meatballs. Back into the oven for five minutes.

Flipped them over again and spooned the sauce over the top. Five more minutes (so, roughly half an hour cooking time total). Ready to serve.

I went with serving them over creamy polenta and with a side salad.

Just zeroing in on them. And you can’t even tell the bottom is flat!

Totally yummy and I can see serving these up to customers. Fancied up a bit, of course! And I’ll be experimenting with adding some spices or herbs to the mix of both the meatballs and the fermented bell pepper sauce, which I can see using for all sorts of things.