One-Pan Orzo with Roasted Peppers, Olives and Feta

Ingredients

• 3 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 2cm strips
• 300 g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 80 g baby spinach
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp chilli flakes
• 900 ml hot vegetable stock
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 320 g orzo
• 100 g Kalamata olives, pitted
• 1 lemon, zested and halved
• Fine salt and black pepper
• 200 g feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 tsp seasoning, for finishing
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lemon, cut into wedges

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, wide, deep-sided frying pan over a high heat until it shimmers. Add the pepper strips in something close to a single layer; crowd them and they steam instead of char. Cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring only occasionally, until softened with proper blackened edges.
2. Drop the heat to medium and add the cherry tomatoes, sliced garlic, dried oregano and chilli flakes. Cook for 2–3 minutes, stirring, until the tomatoes start to collapse; but watch the garlic. It wants 30 seconds to turn fragrant and pale gold; any darker and it turns bitter and you're starting again.
3. Stir in the tomato purée and let it cook for a full minute, pushing it around the pan until it darkens to a deeper brick-red. Toast the oregano and chilli flakes through the paste at the same time; 30 seconds in the hot oil and they wake up properly.
4. Tip in the orzo and stir to coat every grain in the tomato base. Pour in the hot stock; it should taste well-salted, like a good soup. Season generously with salt and pepper and bring to a vigorous simmer.
5. Cook for 10–12 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes so it doesn't catch on the bottom, until the orzo is tender with a slight bite and the liquid has reduced to a loose, glossy, risotto-like sauce. If it tightens up before the orzo is done, splash in a little more hot water.
6. Off the heat, stir through the Kalamata olives and baby spinach and let the residual heat wilt the leaves down; 1–2 minutes is plenty. Add the lemon zest and a good squeeze of lemon juice from one half. The acid should lift the tomato; the salt should make the feta-to-come sing.
7. Crumble the feta generously over the top in big snowy shards, scatter a final pinch of chilli flakes, and finish with a slow drizzle of extra virgin olive oil so it pools and runs into the orzo.