Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

When you order an Italian beef sandwich, you can get it hot, sweet, or both.Getting it hot means you want it with <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera">hot giardiniera</a>, the pickled mixed vegetables condiment used in so many iconic Chicago foods, including <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tavern-style-pizza">tavern-style pizza</a>. Sweet means you want some sweet peppers—roasted until meltingly soft then skinned and seeded—to take the edge of the salty, juicy beef.For our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-italian-beef">Italian beef sandwich</a>, we wanted to give you the option of going hot, sweet, or both, but we also wanted to kick up the flavor and texture for the sweet option. (You could, of course, bump up the sugar and omit the hot peppers in the hot giardiniera, if you like.) Instead of just using roasted bell peppers, we came up with a roasted pepper condiment that borrows a little of the pickled flavor profile of giardiniera. By roasting the peppers and the onion briefly, then allowing the latent heat to steam the vegetables, their texture is closer to the tender crispness of a nice pickle. We like the way the crisp, lightly sweet vegetables play with the beef, along with the hot giardiniera and the soft and plush bread in an Italian beef sandwich, but it’s also a great all-purpose condiment, as good on pizza slices as it is draped on a cracker with some tinned fish or tucked in a cold cut sandwich.

Roasted Sweet Pepper Giardiniera