A stir-fry that will convert the skeptics

By Eric Kim, The New York Times

“The only pepper I cannot abide is a green pepper,” cookbook author Nigella Lawson once wrote, aptly calling out the fruit’s bitter, undeveloped flavor.

“In an emergency,” she recently told me, “I can eat grilled or pan-cooked green bell peppers, as the heat and char give them a more balanced flavor, but they do really still taste underripe to me.”

It’s understandable. Next to its older siblings in blazing red, orange and yellow, the green bell pepper has never had the best reputation.

But, if you’re trying to capture the edge of bitterness, where savory and sweet intermingle, then the green pepper might be your ideal implement. That in-between flavor can be used to your advantage, whether infusing a gin cocktail with a vegetal aroma or lending clarity and balance in flavor bases, like sofrito, epis and the “holy trinity” of onion, pepper and celery in Cajun and Louisiana Creole cooking.

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