Sweet, thick-fleshed, with real smoke and a low bitter edge from the char.
Where this dish comes from
Roasting a vegetable directly in fire is the oldest cooking method there is — older than the pot. What makes the piquillo tradition distinct is that Navarran growers refused to mechanise the peeling. Machine peeling requires steam or lye, and both wash away the smoke that the fire just put there.
The piquillo's protected designation dates to 1987, but the practice around Lodosa goes back to the pepper's arrival from the New World and its adoption into the Ebro valley's irrigated huertas in the 1600s.
Piquillos rellenos are a fixture of Basque and Navarran cooking, and the pintxo bars of San Sebastián — Ganbara, La Cuchara de San Telmo — built reputations on them. Juan Mari Arzak and Martín Berasategui both use jarred piquillos in three-star kitchens without apology, which tells you what the jar is worth.
How we make it
We burn vine cuttings rather than charcoal. Vine wood burns hot and fast with a resinous edge that suits pepper skin; charcoal is cleaner and, here, duller.
Peeling by hand while hot, with dry fingers and no water, is slow and slightly painful work. It is also the entire difference between a smoky pepper and a wet one.
Ember roast, hand peel
40 minutes over embers
01Whole peppers laid directly on vine-cutting embers until the skins blister black.
02Sweated under cloth, then peeled by hand — never washed, so the smoke stays.
03Torn rather than cut, and packed with their own roasting juices.
04Sealed with a thread of oil across the top.
With anchovy and garlic on grilled bread, or folded through eggs.
THE INGREDIENT LEDGER
Every defining ingredient, named: who grew or caught it, where, when it was taken, what it has meant to the people who kept it, and what it does for you.
Piquillo peppers
Two harvests, September and October 2025
Farm / fishery
Family plots along the Ebro, picked by hand
Region
Lodosa, Navarra
History
Lodosa's peppers carry a protected denomination; they have been ember-roasted and peeled by hand — never by machine, never with water — since the 1800s.
Why it is good for you
Roasting concentrates vitamin C and carotenoids; peppers are among the highest vitamin C foods by weight.
Nutrition, roughly
Per 100 g: 30 kcal · 3 g fibre · 120 mg vitamin C · vitamin A.
Vine cuttings for the fire
Pruned February 2025
Farm / fishery
Prunings from neighbouring Garnacha vineyards
Region
Navarra
History
Burning the winter prunings under the autumn peppers is the oldest kind of thrift — one crop's waste seasoning the next.
Why it is good for you
A short, hot, low-resin fire that blisters the skin without stewing the flesh.
Nutrition, roughly
Flavour only.
Nutrition figures are typical values for the ingredient itself and are given as a guide, not as a dietary claim. Harvest dates refer to the batch printed on your lid.
