Some dishes need no fire.
No pot, no oven. Split a red pepper lengthwise, fill it with avocado, and layer thin slices of brie and pancetta on top. That is the whole dish.
Outlaw Chef Damjan Bistričić is a cook from the Istria region of Croatia. On the Istrian news site istarski.hr, he writes a recipe column called "Nedjeljna škola kuhanja" — Sunday Cooking School.
In the column of September 13, 2026, he brought us "Nebeski punjena paprika."
Literally, a heavenly stuffed pepper.
Yet the story of this dish begins not in heaven, but with the Devil.
A Midnight Visitor
Outlaw Chef's cooking always grows out of everyday life.
An apple picked from the tree, olive oil from his father-in-law, a few words overheard by chance.
This time, it began at the wooden table in his front yard.
On a windy night around midnight, he sat with his head and shoulders resting on that table and drifted off to sleep. In his dream, the Devil appeared once again — that ever-cheerful gentleman, made of something like shadow, human in shape but without a face.
"What you made me last time was phenomenal! This time, surprise me — make something of your own choosing, for me and for yourself."
He imagined potatoes cut into strips and fried in olive oil, and a red pepper fried the same way. And cherry tomatoes injected with a syringe full of rum, olive oil, sea salt flakes, green peppercorns, and Greek basil, then baked for 25 minutes at 170°C.
"Ooh! This is finger-licking good!"
With that, the Devil vanished into the dark ether.
When he woke, it was already dawn.
Where Adding Leads
He decided to make this dish for his readers, too.
But so as not to repeat himself, he wanted to take it further. Instead of cherry tomatoes, dried plums — filled with a cook's syringe of teran, the red wine of Istria, along with honey, sea salt, and water scented with wild thyme.
And there, he stopped.
"Enough! I'm overcomplicating things in search of perfection."
Creating food, he writes, should be a spontaneous moment, weighed down by nothing.
So he headed to the supermarket nearby. As he walked in, an announcement came over the speakers:
"Dear customers, brie cheese is on sale…"
And with that, the dish had its axis.
Brie at the center, with a raw red pepper, pancetta, a dried plum, and avocado.
Building a dish on instinct from whatever he happens upon — that is his "Art Brut Cuisine."
No Fire, So the Blade Decides Everything
Nothing in this dish is cooked.
That is exactly why the work of the blade becomes the flavor.
The red pepper is split lengthwise and the seeds removed. The pancetta is sliced thin. So is the brie. The dried plum is cut into strips.
The avocado is halved, the stone removed, and the flesh scooped out, then mixed well with honey, olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper and spooned into the pepper. On top go the sliced ingredients.
The beauty of a cut edge, the evenness of each slice, how the layers come together in the mouth. When nothing is cooked, each of these stays on the plate, with nothing to hide behind.
The recipe simply says "with a sharp kitchen knife."
Yet in the photographs, the blade beside the pepper is the Ichizo Higonokami.
A Hundred Times Better Than the Devil's Plate
He picks up the filled pepper and bites in with gusto.
"Hey! This is a hundred times tastier than that stuffed tomato I made for the Devil in my lucid dream the other day!"
The avocado spread pairs perfectly with the Istrian pancetta, the dried plum adds freshness, and the brie, with the fresh red pepper, rounds out the whole story.
And at the end, he adds:
"Dobar vam tek, dragi čitatelji!"
Enjoy your meal, dear readers!
Stripping Away
The dish for the Devil was complex and elaborate.
But what Outlaw Chef chose in the end was simply to split, slice, and fill.
When you stop adding, each ingredient begins to speak in its own voice.
That echoes what Ichizo Honpo has put into the Higonokami: stripping away everything unnecessary to keep only what is essential.
Outlaw Chef once told us about the Higonokami: "What seems like a disadvantage at first glance is actually an advantage and a strength."
On a plate made without fire, those words seem to have been quietly confirmed once more.
You can also watch the cooking in this reel.
Original article (in Croatian):
istarski.hr — "Nebeski punjena paprika"
You can explore more of Outlaw Chef's world on Instagram.
@monsieuroutlawchef
All photographs and words from Outlaw Chef are published with his permission.