The classic stuffed bell pepper that I have known, is stuffed with rice and ground meat. I have made these two or three times in my life. Once with meat when I ate meat and a couple of times with rice and lentils.
I have a strong memory of stuffed peppers that we had in Cairo Egypt years ago. It was a welcomed find, after searching for vegetarian food in the city. We mostly found things like hummus which was bland and not as good as anything I've had in Canada. We finally found a popular restaurant called "Falfelas" which had a few vegetarian options. We chose stuffed peppers. They were stuffed with rice and something else. At the time this was satisfying because it was a hot dinner. Looking back I remember it being rather boring.
What came first the stuffed pepper idea or the bell peppers?
Well actually I wasn't planning to make stuffed peppers. To be honest I am not a mega huge fan of sweet peppers. I don't know why. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that they haven't blown me away.
I give things a chance when I see them in the markdown bin for ridiculously low prices. I can't stand that they would be tossed out if nobody bought them. In fact there were so many I had to leave some behind. I knew that I wouldn't be able to have time to use them before they went bad.
The only thing that came to mind were stuffed peppers. This time I took it in a more exotic direction adding some spice.
I won't list ingredients as usual. I will add the items describing what I put in. I haven't measured anything.
One of the items for the filling was rice. I used basmati. I added a pinch of turmeric when I cooked it. I also added a pinch of cumin and coriander that had been toasted.
I cooked red lentils and added a half rice half lentil mixture.
I chopped 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic, 4 red jalapeno peppers, and a piece of ginger minced.
Saute the onions, garlic, ginger and peppers.
I added toasted 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon coriander toasted and fresh, 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon garam masala salt and pepper.
To add a little extra texture I ground a cup of soaked cashews to add to the filling mixture.
Mix the rice with lentils gently not to make it mushy.
Fold in onion garlic and pepper mixture along with ground cashews.
I decided to add a cup of green peas at the end.
I decided to cook them in tomato sauce but a spiced version of the classic. This was made with around 6 or 7 Roma tomatoes that I found in the markdown bin. They were blended. I first browned half a chopped onion, garlic and cilantro adding a pinch of toasted cumin and coriander and salt. I added a tablespoon of tamarind paste and a teaspoon of agave nectar to balance the tartness. It was not sweet from this.
While this was simmering approximately 20 minutes, I stuffed the peppers which I slightly pre-grilled in the toaster oven.
If my regular oven could bake, I would have baked them in the sauce in there. I used a pan on the stove first. They were simmered in the sauce for a while then in a smaller quantity, they were baked in my countertop oven.
Before going into the countertop oven I added some of the sauce on the top.
I didn't keep them in the oven very long and removed them from the sauce bath.
These were much more exciting for me then the classic stuff peppers that I have had. I am now a fan of sweet peppers. I think they are also referred to as Capsicum.
Thanks for dropping by.
