Shishito Peppers

Shishito Peppers whether eaten as a snack or incorporated into a main dish, crunchy, sweet shishito peppers are delicious and occasionally pack a punch—one in ten are superspicy!
 Saute peppers in olive oil, over high heat, until they just begin to blister- serve hot, sprinkled with sea salt. Excellent for tempura, yakitori, and sauteed.

Sautéed shishitos are absolutely the best thing to nibble on with drinks, and they're insanely easy to prepare. Deborah Madison

1. 1. Here's what you do. Heat a little olive oil in a wide sauté pan until it is good and hot but not smoking. Add the peppers and cook them over medium, tossing and turning them frequently until they blister. They shouldn't char except in places. Don't rush. It takes 10 to 15 minutes to cook a panful of peppers. When they're done, toss them with sea salt and add a squeeze of fresh lemon. Slide the peppers into a bowl and serve them hot. You pick them up by the stem end and eat the whole thing, minus the stem, that is.
   You can probably do fancier, cheffy things with them, but they're terrific like this. For variety, I sometimes use a little toasted sesame oil instead of olive oil and finish them with togarashi. If you have leftovers, an unlikely event in my experience, chop off the stems and put the peppers in an omelet or some scrambled eggs.  

5-Minute Blistered Shishito Peppers Recipe

 Chief Foodiecrush-er

 Many recipes call for adding oil to the pan before adding the peppers but when I’ve done this in the past, the smoke from the oil is pretty heavy. And I hate a smoky kitchen. Searing in a dry pan did the job just fine, minus the smoke.

 I used three different flavored salts for flavoring the peppers: Natural Crystal Flakes with Wild Garlic, Smoked Applewood Salt and Truffle Salt. It was fun to experiment and see how the different salts flavored the same basic preparation of the peppers. You could of course use plain kosher salt or any other salt you have a hankering for. I think a saffron flavored salt would be dyn-o-mite.

A hot cast iron pan creates the perfect char for this bite-size pepper appetizer tossed with flavored salts.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces shisito peppers
• ½ lemon, sliced
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher or flavored salts

Instructions

1. Heat a large cast iron skillet over high heat until the pan is hot. Add the peppers to the hot skillet and cook the peppers, turning occasionally then add a few slices of lemon. Cook until the peppers become fragrant and begin to blister, and nudge the lemons so they don't stick, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil plus a squeeze more lemon then sprinkle with flavored salts. Serve immediately.