Stewed peppers with goat's cheese

Serves 4-6

(Jason Lowe)

This is a great starter or a main course accompaniment. Try to buy nice thick- fleshed peppers so that they stay pretty much intact when cooked.

If you are serving this as a side dish, you might want to leave out the goat's cheese – unless, of course, you have any vegetarian guests.

2 red onions, peeled, halved and cut into rough 1cm dice
4-5tbsp olive oil
4 thick-skinned red peppers
1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
120-150g soft goat's cheese

Halve the peppers, then cut each half into three sections lengthways, making sure that you remove any seeds carefully.

Lay the peppers on a board skin-side down and with a sharp knife cut the skin away from the flesh, getting the knife as close to the skin as possible, then cut them into rough 1-1 inch squares.

Heat the olive oil in a thick-bottomed saucepan and gently cook the red onion for 4-5 minutes with a lid on, stirring every so often.

Add the red peppers, season and cook with a lid on for 3-4 minutes, giving the peppers the occasional stir.

Add the tomatoes and continue cooking for about 15 minutes with a lid on, stirring every so often.

Re-season the peppers if necessary and leave to cool.

Transfer to a serving dish and break the goats cheese into nuggets and scatter over the peppers.