I’m not sure of the scale of that picture (thwy’ve wother pictured a single cherry tomato or the scale is wasy off) bit at face value it's bigfwr than the lime ans the potato so I'm gonna say it's a bell pepper. I see them longish sometimes. Whatever it is, it's not a GREEN bell pepper as the directions mention.

The recipe is intentionally written as a loose guideline, no amounts listed either, so just use what you feel like. It calls for cayenne, so I say extra heat is fine if that’s what you like.

Thanks food!

I thought they took pictures of their preprepped ingredients, but maybe they used stock pictures, and maybe just used the wrong one?

I'm going to stick with the spices they have and pretend like it's only bell pepper. That is the darkest skinniest bell pepper I have ever seen. I would totally swear it was some kind of ancho chili.

Though, I don't think English is necessarily their first language? It keeps saying homely, but I think they mean homey for instance. I'm happy to follow their recipe to the T. I've never had Peruvian food but I think I would like it!

I've had pointy red bell peppers like that.

If you want some heat, add it, but I do think the way this is constructed, that a bell pepper of some kind is meant

I'm really thinking that it is just a bell pepper. That is the direction I'm going to go! I guess I just haven't lived enough to see a pointy red bell pepper.

IIRC they're a little sweeter, but not enough to make a difference.

I use mini sweet peppers as a bell pepper sub all the time.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sweet+mini+peppers&client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=1503581cdfc54ca7&sca_upv=1&ei=pGpzZvT5FczcwN4P4pqnqAc&ved=0ahUKEwj02

It does look like a tiny bell pepper, as Judi pictured.

I've had Peruvian food at several places in L.A., especially at Grand Central Market, and none of it was spicy. My favorite Peruvian restaurant was in Marina Del Rey, and was a fusion of Peruvian an Japanese, which I especially liked. Unfortunately, it is no longer open. It had some spiciness from wasabi, but not from chilies.

I've not found any South American food to be spicy (unlike Mexican and Caribbean), and I did not have spicy food in Central America either (Guatemala, Costa Rica). Cuban food, despite being somewhat Caribbean, is not spicy either, as a rule, unlike Jamaican or Haitian food.

Corno di Toro sweet peppers look like that - and there are a number of other sweet non-bells too. Many are Latin American varieties.

Don't the British use "homely" in the way Americans use "homey"? Seems I've heard it on the British Baking Shows to mean rustic food.

Good catch, Oly. I've heard it used on cooking shows by British chefs when they are describing what we'd call comfort food. Unpretentious fare.

Oh I didn't care if their first language was English or not, I just meant they might have meant something different because their word is different in their language. I'm just happy they shared the recipe ☺️

I just dont see that it makes any difference what kind of pepper that you use. You should use whatever you have or like. I doubt that a modern day bell pepper was ever used traditionally. I dont know that as a fact, of course, but still would highly doubt that. The traditional use of chilies in cooking is not the same as our modern concept and there are varieties of chilies that you dont see here very oftne.

Use what ever you want. It seems unlikely to matter.

I've been thinking about this a bit since the thread. I haven't looked it up, but have been speculating. A beautiful bell pepper has four matching lobes with round ”feet”. This, compared to other peppers has to be a mutation, right? Scotch bonnets have involved shapes, as surely do other peppers, but most peppers are some kind of pointy. When you see the whole box for sale, rather than picked over for perfection, there are a number of different wonky shapes. Many look like they grew against something hard or something, and couldn't fully form. The pointy ones look perfect but guajillo shaped. It could just be another sweet pepper thrown in—they seem sweeter and less vegetal—but I keep wondering if they're throwbacks and have just lost their quad-cuspid mutation...

Rob, I grow Ajvarski which looks just like that. When it's red and ripe it's super sweet, no heat at all. I have also grown Jimmy Nardello, also a sweet red pepper and it looked like that too, so I'm going to bet they really did mean bell pepper.

Enjoy that meal, it looks good to me.

Annie

Plllog, there are different kinds of sweet capsicums in all kinds of shapes, including pointy. Not all have four lobes. We were chatting with a Japanese chef at an izakaya we really enjoyed, and he was telling us that there are three and four lobed normal capsicums, and one tends to be a little sweeter than the other, though I can't recall which.

FWIW, I've seen commenters on social media telling people that the number of lobes indicates male or female - which is total bunk of course 😄

My first thought, back when I first read the OP, was that they might've meant 'sweet'.

I was specifically referring to the bell peppers we get at the grocery store which come in five colors but all have four lobes if not misshapen, or the occasional guajillo shaped on. Certainly there are multitudes of other peppers.

surprised to see this pop up again? I appreciate your answer Annie (justifying my use of sweet and my efforts to try and stay true to Peruvian food). The recipe made so much, I took half and put in the freezer. I have pulled it out again and the frozen red enchilada sauce to change it up a bit. Same spice profile, so I think, saucing it will make it even better.