Anyone have a good recipe for stuffed peppers?
I have six huge green peppers from my garden, plus a giant batch of tomato sauce I made from the last of the tomatoes. I thought I might make stuffed peppers to use both of these things up, but I don't seem to have a recipe.
Any suggestions?
Cathy Elton
Oct 15, 2002 10:59AM
I've developed a good stuffed pepper recipe, originally inspired by a recipe in David Waltuck's excellent STAFF MEALS, but changed substantailly. You could play around with your tomato sauce instead of using the fresh or canned tomaotes indicated. You could also use leftover rice, if you've got some lazing around the fridge.
Peppers Stuffed with Sausage and Rice
2 teaspoons peanut oil
1 cup jasmine or basmati rice
1 1 /2 cups home-made or low-sodium chicken broth
a good pinch of salt
Heat oil in a roomy saucepan over medium heat until shimmering. Add rice and stir constantly for 3 minutes. Add broth and salt, stir once to combine, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside, still covered, for another 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 lb. sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
1 tablespoon Fino Sherry, or dry French vermouth
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 small onion, diced
1 thick carrot, peeled and grated
2 medium tomatoes, broiled for 10 minutes, then peeled, and diced
(or 1 14-oz. can of Muir Glen roasted diced tomatoes)
1/2 teaspoon dried imported oregano
1 scant teaspoon sweet Spanish (smoked) paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 medium green and/or red bell peppers
1 cup chicken broth, plus additional if needed
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage meat and sauté until browned, about 10 minutes, stirring and breaking up the pieces. Deglaze the pan with the sherry.
Add the garlic and onion and cook, stirring often, about 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add the carrot and cook another minute. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and cook a minute longer. Stir in the rice, oregano, paprika, parsley, salt, and pepper. Stir well to mix. Taste carefully and season with salt and pepper.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice off the tops of the peppers and discard. Remove pith and seeds. Fill each pepper with the rice stuffing, packing it in well and mounding it over the top. Place peppers in an 8 square glass baking dish, pour the broth into the bottom of the dish, and cover well with foil. Bake until the peppers have softened and cooked through, about 40 minutes.
Yield: 4 peppers, and one per person is usually plenty
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Here's one I grew up with.
6 peppers
large onion, chopped
4 or more garlic cloves
1 pound meat or meat/pork mix
can of tomatoes
3 or 4 sticks butter
tiych allspice
Lea & Perrins
rice or breadcrumbs
Vut tops of peppers and dice up the peppers around he stems.
Trim membranes as best you can and parboil peppers for about 10 minutes. Melt butter in skillet and add meat onion, garlic, tomatoes, celery and a little Lea & Perins and sautee till cooked through (ten minutes?) Put it in a bowl and add rice pepper etc (maybe tabasco). Stuff 'em Top with buttered bread crumbs or cheese
Put in baking dish with water (couple of cups) and give it 20 or 25 minutes at about 350.
Sometimes I put cout-up cooked turnips in or some water chestnuts to give it crunch
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Why would anyone want to make stuffed peppers? I know they were a '50s thing for stretching meat, but I have never met anyone who looked forward to actually eating a mushy, steamy, bad-tasting baked bell pepper filled with a burger-rice mixture with catsup smeared on top.
Instead of committing this culinary crime, try any of the following.
Roasted bell peppers are the all-time best way to civilize a raw pepper. Use 'em in salads; enhance enchiladas and quesadillas; improve egg or chicken salad sandwiches; add to omelets; include on a pizza; etc. You can even whir them in a blender as a base for a sauce or a salsa. Problem is, roasted peppers don't last much more than a week in the fridge, even if they are submerged in oil.
Stir-frying, as in beef chow fun in black bean sauce is also a good thing to do.
Make a pot of chili, and go generous on the bell peppers. Or do a pepper-enhanced pot of goulash.
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Think New Orleans - gumbo, shrimp creole, etc. lots of green pepper.
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Stuffed peppers, when done correctly, are far from a culinary crime. They are a great comfort food and lend themselves to endless variation in preparation.
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Yeah, but ...
OK, so they can be stuffed elegantly, and sauced nicely, but the fact remains that the pepper itself, with the combination of baking and steaming, results in something with neither a good flavor nor a good texture.
You're better off stuffing a zucchini or an eggplant, IMNSHO.
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When I think of stuffed peppers, I don't think of a 1950s meat-stretching culinary abomination. I think of chiles rellanos, which are incredibly delicious. They're not usually made with bell peppers, of course, but I don't see any reason you couldn't do it....
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Sorry, can't agree with you on this one. I've made some stellar stuffed peppers that were far from a culinary crime. So much so that the plates were licked clean. And I can think of a few chef's that would also disagree as I've ordered stuffed peppers at several restaurants that would make your mouth water.
Bell peppers always get a bad rap when it comes to cooking but if done right are delicious! Just my $0.02.
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I'll stick up for you Sharuf. To my taste, there is nothing appealing about a stuffed pepper. Maybe too many bad examples in too much institutional food through prep school and college.
Then again, in full disclosure, I don't like peppers at all. I can't think of ANY other food I don't like. I crave all forms of offal, sea creatures far and wide, the most pungent cheese, and every cuisine around the world. But if I find green peppers in a dish, I always find my fork working around them. Otherwise, their taste will over-power everthing else.
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I'm with you Sharuf, I've never met a stuffed pepper that I liked and I love peppers.
I would do one of two things:
- Roast them, peel off the skin, grill some rustic bread, paint some olive oil on the bread, layer on some roasted pepper, goat cheese, and basil
- Pan fry the peppers in olive oil with some sweet onions, and some of those tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped. Makes great sandwiches and is good cold.
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It is the green bell peppers that get nasty when stuffed and overcooked to death. The red ones taste just fine.
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"Overcooked" being the key word. I have clients who specifically told me they prefer the stuffed peppers I make them to be green as opposed to red. I didn't ask why, but the key is to simply not overcook them.
jake
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Remember the Calvin and Hobbs cartoon where Mom told Calvin the stuffed peppers were steamed monkey brains? Calvin thought they were great, but then Dad wouldn't eat them.
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You didn't eat my mother's stuffed peppers....They were about the opposite of what you describe. I'm going to call her later for the recipe--She is 86 and sometimes forgetful, so I'll have to make the recipe to make sure--between the two of us--that it tastes the way I remember it.
Someone else posted that she/he only briefly cooks the stuffed peppers....so that they are still crunchy? Hmmmmm.
Not only should they cook (in a pot of sauce) for a long time, but they are best if they stand overnight and are reheated and served the next day. We usually served one stuffed pepper on a bed of simple spaghetti, and plenty of sauce ladled from the pot. Oh--it's also important to use ground pork, along with ground beef in the stuffing. (The fat in the ground pork adds tremendous flavor.)
I will enter a recipe soon. If you choose to make it, I don't think you will be disappointed!
Cheers
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I, for one, await your and your mother's recipe with peppers poised.
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This is the season for my stuffed papers, the leftovers of which I just enjoyed. I get a large basket of huge,squarish red bell peppers at my local farmer's market and stuff them. I don't use recipes, so I never know how I'm going to make them. It's a little daunting, starting over every year. I can see why we have recipes. This year I threw the peppers in the oven whole for a few minutes to soften them up a bit and later removed the insides. I cooked a kilo of risotto almost through (using chicken broth and a little leftover spaghetti "gravy" for the liquid ) and mixed it with pieces of leftover sausage from the same pot, along with grated pecorino and cut-up roasted tomatoes that were last week's project inspired by Tom Colicchio's book.I stuffed the peppers with the rice mixture and roasted them in the oven until they were firm but cooked through.I can't seem to miss with these peppers no matter how they're cooked. The ingredients just have to be great. You could cook them longer and ,of course, they improve with age. Other years, I've blanched the peppers first and filled them with other fillings like braised lamb chunks and bread crumbs,greek olives ,and anchovy mixtures.I just had a fantasy that I could stuff each of these big ones with whole, slow-braised lamb shanks.Che bellezza, as Lidia Bastianich would say. I won't remember this idea next year.
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correction!The peppers weren't that big. I used a half-kilo bag of arborio rice. You have to watch out for these people who don't use recipes.
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If you can get hold of a copy of The Original New York Times Cookbook, it has a really interesting recipe for Peppers Stuffed With Fish and Corn-Stuffed Peppers. See if your library has this oldie but goodie cookbook treasure. Even if you don't cook up the pepper recipes it's got lots of other intriguing concoctions to try. Happy reading.
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Ask your recipe question on this site by Epicurious. You will get many fine answers I am sure. Richie
Link: http://food4.epicurious.com/HyperNews...
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Wow, I never knew stuffed peppers were such a controversial food.
I made something similar to what Tom Steele suggested - sausage (turkey sausage, actually, and not cooked before putting it into the stuffing), cooked rice, tons of onions, garlic, lots of paprika, and mushrooms and an egg. I did not pre-cook the pepper before baking, as some have suggested. I poured some fresh tomato sauce over them, covered them and baked for about an hour. More sauce on top at the end.
They were so good, I can't imagine anyone calling them a boring food. Basic yes, but totally satisfying and delicious. In fact, my dinner guests couldn't stop raving about them!!
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I usually make one of the ones from Cook's Illustrated. Everything gets cooked first and only baked for about 20 minutes so the peppers stay fairly crunchy, which I like.
The stuffing is rice, ground beef, diced tomatoes, parsley, garlic, onion and cheese, topped with tomato sauce and more cheese.
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Here's a link to a recipe for red pepper pasta sauce.
Link: http://www.hub-uk.com/foodpages27/rec...
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