Roasted Red Pepper, Sun-Dried Tomato & Baked Garlic Cream Cheese Dip
This dip showed up at a recent garden party event in KZN, created for us by Casey from The Roasted Rose, piled into a bowl and surrounded by a wreath of crunchy crudités; sugar snap peas, baby corn, carrots, juicy red peppers, all with with a basket of crackers alongside.
It didn’t last the afternoon. Almost all of the work happens in the oven: the peppers and whole garlic heads roast away together, quietly turning sweet and jammy.
It’s endlessly useful, too; as generous as it is here with vegetables, it’s just as good spread thickly on a slice of toasted sourdough, spooned into a baked potato, or stirred through pasta for an instant sauce.
This recipe makes about 400-500ml which enough to fill a good-sized bowl for a crudité platter, or a smaller batch for a few close friends.
INGREDIENTS
2 red bell peppers
1 yellow bell pepper
2 whole heads of garlic
2–3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
Salt and black pepper
250g The Gourmet Greek cream cheese, softened
50–60g sun-dried tomatoes (dry, not oil-packed)
Squeeze of lemon juice, to taste
METHOD
1. Roast the peppers and garlic. Heat the oven to 200°C. Place the whole peppers on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Pop the whole garlic heads into the tray alongside the peppers. Toss everything together. Roast for 35–45 minutes, until the peppers are soft and blistered and the garlic is completely soft when pressed. Remove and leave everything to cool.
2. Prepare the sun-dried tomatoes. While the peppers and garlic cool, cover the sun-dried tomatoes with just-boiled water and leave to soak for 10–15 minutes, until softened. Drain well, pat dry and roughly chop.
3. Peel and seed the peppers. Once the peppers are cool enough to handle, peel away the skins, remove the seeds and stems and roughly chop the flesh.
4. Squeeze out the garlic. Unwrap the garlic and squeeze the softened cloves out of their skins into a bowl; they should come out easily, almost like a paste.
5. Blend the base. In a food processor, blend the roasted peppers, roasted garlic and cream cheese until smooth (or chunky, depending on your preference) and well combined.
6. Fold through the sun-dried tomato. Tip the mixture into a bowl and fold through the chopped sun-dried tomato by hand, so you keep some texture running through the dip rather than blending it all the way smooth. Taste and season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice.
7. Chill and serve. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving, to let the flavours settle. Serve in a wide, shallow bowl, drizzled with a little olive oil, surrounded by crudités and crackers for scooping.
NOTES
Make ahead: this keeps well in the fridge for up to 4 days, covered; in fact, it’s better the next day, once the flavours have had time to come together.
Texture: for a smoother, more spreadable dip, blend the sun-dried tomatoes in with the peppers and garlic instead of folding them through by hand.
A little heat: a pinch of chilli flakes blended in with the peppers gives it a gentle warmth without overpowering the sweetness of the roasted vegetables.