Homemade Vinegar Peppers
An essential component of Chicken Riggies and (obviously) Pork Chops with Vinegar Peppers, these couldn’t be easier to make. Your home prep won’t be exactly the same as Casa Visco or other Italian-American brands, but it’s definitely close enough to use in recipes. One average bell pepper produces 1 c vinegar peppers.
Ingredients:
Green bell peppers*
White vinegar
Garlic cloves, peeled
Kosher salt
Method: Cut peppers in half lengthwise and remove the stalks, seeds and connective tissue. Cut into bite size pieces approximately 1″ square and stuff into a canning jar along with 1/4 t salt and 2 garlic cloves per pepper. Cover with white vinegar (about 1 cup per pepper), seal the jar and refrigerate. Peppers will be ready in 2 days and will keep for a couple of weeks.
Alternate: Blanch the peppers by bringing vinegar to a boil in a saucepan and pouring it over them. This will result in slightly more tender peppers and they’ll be ready faster but it doesn’t make a major difference in taste.
Cheese Peppers from Burpee
*The Casa Visco jar says they use cherry peppers but I don’t think so because the pieces are too big. Several reliable sources suggest the most authentic pepper to use is “cheese peppers”, so called because they were used as red coloring for Cheese in Spain. You can get the seeds from Burpee (from whom I borrowed the photo) if you want to try growing yourself.
