The stuffing for peppers is the same stuffing used in all kinds of stuffed vegetable dishes. It’s easy to make, and it can be adjusted to work with whatever ingredients that you enjoy and have on hand in your fridge or pantry. You can even add chopped greens to the mix and stuff green, yellow, orange, and red peppers, potatoes, eggplants, squash, artichokes, okra, or tomatoes. Or, instead of chopping up the greens, you can take large leaves and wrap them around mounds of stuffing. These kinds of dishes are served as a whole meal in one pan. They can also be served as a main dish, accompanied by some cheese and olives. You can even eat this stuffing on its own, sprinkled with your favorite cheese and paired with some fresh toasted bread.
Ingredients:
- 6–8 peppers
- 2 T olive oil
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 2 peppers, finely chopped (make sure these peppers are different colors than the ones you are filling with the stuffing)
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound ground meat (all one kind of meat or a mixture of different meats)
- 3 medium carrots, finely chopped
- 1 medium zucchini, finely chopped
- 1 medium yellow squash, finely chopped
- 1 T tomato paste
- 1 cup jasmine rice (or any other long grain rice)
- fresh or dried herbs to your liking
- 1 t paprika
- 1 t salt
- 1 t black pepper
- water, beef stock, or bone broth, as needed
Wash the peppers and trim off the tops. Dispose of the seeds, or, if you’d like, you can save the seeds for other recipes. Many women use pepper seeds in Albanian cooking.
You can either cut the pepper tops into small pieces and mix them into the stuffing, or use the whole tops as “lids” to cover the stuffing in the peppers.
In a deep skillet or sauté pan, drizzle one teaspoon of oil and add the onion, peppers, and garlic. Cook them until the onions become translucent. Add the ground meat and stir to combine, cooking until any liquid forming in the pan is gone.
Now add all the remaining vegetables and the tomato paste. Allow this mixture to cook for a minute, and then add the rice, herbs, paprika, salt, and pepper.
Cover this mixture with water or stock, and let it boil for about 5 minutes, or until most of the liquid is gone.
Remove the pan from the heat, and use this mixture to fill the peppers. Arrange the filled peppers in rows, side-by-side, in an oiled baking pan (preferably cast iron). Add any remaining stuffing around the sides of the peppers.
If you feel that the stuffing has become too dry and you are worried that the rice won’t cook properly, you can drizzle an extra cup of water or stock around peppers. Don’t worry, though, the liquid from the vegetables will cook the rice even if you don’t add extra water.
Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for around 30 minutes in a 350°F oven. After 30 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and bake for another 10–15 minutes.
Enjoy this dish warm! Serve with feta cheese and olives.
