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Parsley Padrone Pepper Bruschetta

The 3rd and final post for the epic Thursday Night Dinner series is ironically about the first course of the evening. Needing something not too filling which wasn’t a cheese plate, I turned to some more cook books for inspiration. Thumbing through the latest edition of Saveur, I stumbled upon a beautiful looking Parsley Salad recipe. It was very simple and required very little ingredients: flat leaf parsley, capers, and onions on top of grilled bread. I took the idea and ran with it. I had bought some awesome cipollini onions from the farmers market, and of course parsley and capers. The cipollini onions are not as sweet as a red or vidallia in the raw state, so I took a page from my Italian cooking class and marinated the thinly sliced onions in some red wine vinegar. This technique is used in a classic tuscan bruschetta recipe, and is one of my personal favorites. So, with stems removed from the parsley, capers and onions added, I topped the dish with some salt, fresh cracked pepper and a drizzle of high quality olive oil. On first bite, it was delicious but missing something. I went back into the fridge and added some shaved Parmesan and a little more salt. The second bite was better than the first. It was still missing something… so, I browsed the kitchen. Earlier that evening while I was getting things prepped I had some padrone peppers, that I bought at the Farmers Market, that were pan roasted and salted to munch on. A light bulb went off. I took some of the cooked peppers, quickly julienned them, and added them to the salad. The 3rd bite was amazing. Very happy with this new creation, I thought the only improvement would be to use Manchego cheese instead of Parmesan. This dish is incredibly easy and tasty. Use it for your next dinner party!

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