Red & Yellow Capsicum

Red and yellow bell peppers, which are simply green peppers left on the plant to ripen. That extra time is what makes them sweet rather than grassy, and it is also why they cost more.

They are at their best where that sweetness shows: roasted and peeled for a salad, blitzed into muhammara, charred on a grill alongside meat, or sliced raw into a lunchbox. In a cooked dish they add colour and sugar rather than heat.

Choose peppers that feel heavy and firm with tight, glossy skin and a green, unshrivelled stem. Wrinkles at the shoulders are the first sign of age.

Fridge, in the salad drawer, loose rather than bagged. Ripe peppers do not last as long as green ones — the sugar that makes them good also makes them spoil faster.

Five to seven days refrigerated.