Salada de Tomate e Pimentos Assados

This is the salad that appears on every table during sardine season. Walk through any Algarve village in June and you'll smell the charcoal before you see the smoke. The sardines are on the grill. And next to them, always, this salad.

I learned this not from Avó Leonor, who was Alentejana through and through, but from a grandmother in Olhão named Dona Cremilde. She roasted the peppers directly over the gas flame, turning them with her bare fingers until they were black all over. When I flinched, she laughed. "Fifty years of this," she said, holding up her calloused hands. "The fire doesn't bother me anymore."

The peppers must char. Completely. The black skin steams off and what remains is sweet, smoky, impossibly tender. You don't cook them in an oven and call it the same thing. The direct flame matters. The tomatoes stay raw, ripe, juicy. The contrast is everything.

This salad gets better as it sits. The juices from the tomatoes mix with the oil and the pepper liquid, creating a sauce you'll want to mop up with bread. Make it before your guests arrive. Let it rest. When the sardines come off the grill, this is what you serve alongside. Pão, azeite, vinho, sempre.