Roasted red pepper flan with Pecorino sauce

This vegetable flan is a lesser known Italian recipe that combines a soft roasted pepper flan with a creamy Pecorino sauce.

Course Starter

Cuisine Italian

Keyword italian starter, pecorino sauce, roasted pepper flan, savoury flan, vegetable flan

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Homemade roasted peppers 2 hours

Total Time 50 minutes

Servings people

Calories 229kcal

Author Eva | Electric Blue Food

Peel and seed the roasted peppers, discard any excess water or oil depending on type used. The optimal quantity of cleaned roasted pepper slices to be used is about 250 grams.
Combine roasted peppers, whole eggs, ricotta, grated parmigiano and salt in a tall container and blend until smooth. Thoroughly butter the molds - even if using silicone! Flan is soft and fragile and we need to make sure it will smoothly slide out of the molds. Divide mixture into molds. Please notice that the flans will grow as they bake, so do not fill the molds to the brim to avoid spilling.
Transfer filled molds to a baking dish and fill the baking dish with water, about 1 cm. Do not skip this step as flan needs to be baked in a water bath. Place water bath dish and molds in the preheated oven and bake at 200°C f(390°F) or 30 minutes. The flan will rise and set as it bakes.
Remove from the oven when flans look set and the tops are starting to slightly brown. Do not overbake. Let flan rest in the molds for about 10 minutes before plating.

As the flans bake in the oven, prepare the cheese sauce. Add the flour to a small saucepan and set on medium heat. Let the flour toast for a couple of minutes, then add the butter and quickly mix to make a roux. Add the cold milk and stir to combine. Do not worry if the difference in temperature causes lumps; stirring will dissolve them. Stir until the mixture reaches boiling temperature, then remove the sauce form the heat and fold in the grated pecorino. Pecorino cheese is quite salty, so there is no need to add any salt to the cheese sauce. Add freshly cracked black pepper to taste.
Pour the cheese sauce over the plated flan, or serve on the side preferably in a metal container so that the sauce keeps warm and does not thicken too quickly.

Red pepper quantity:

if roasting red peppers you need to use 2-3 fresh bell peppers, depending on their size. The total weight should be about 600 grams raw and whole. Baked and cleaned the weight will be reduced to 250-300 g.
If using ready to eat roasted peppers (for exampe jarred, preserved in oil) you will need 250 g drained.

Please notice that the nutritional information provided is made by an online calculator and meant to be used as a guideline only.