ПЕРЦЫ ФАРШИРОВАННЫЕ (STUFFED PEPPERS)
Stuffed by mince sweet peppers is very (very!) testy and tempting dish. But as everything nice in this world, it is not as low in calories as we all wish it to be.
It is more Turkish dish but I do it Eastern European way - with pork mince.
The ingredients are very simple and you can get them from any supermarket.
As a busy businesswoman, I usually take big pan and cook once for several days.
So, proportions will be for 12 peppers.
You will need -
Equipment:
6-7 liters saucepan
Kettle
Plate, smaller than diameter of your saucepan
Smaller bowl or saucepan for 2-3 liters capacity.
Main dish ingredients:
12 big sweet papers
1 white onion
500 grams of beef mince
500 grams of pork mince
About 250-300 grams of white basmati rice
1 garlic glome (head)
Parsley
Dill
1 small red chili pepper or red chili powder
Black paper powder
Black peppercorns
Salt
Thyme
Curry
Ketchup or tomato paste
Sauce: Soured (French) cream.
Cook your rice. I do it in a microwave - just put all rice into a bowl suitable for microwave and fill a bowl with water. Water has to be above rice at about half or two third of an inch.
Place it into a microwave that programmed for maximum heat for about 13-15 minutes.
Cut the onion to smaller pieces; put it into a food processor together with 6-7 sprouts of parsley, 8-10 sprouts of dill and one small red chili. Process them to more or less smooth paste.
Now mix your cooked rice, both minces and that mess from a food processor together.
Skin about 5-6 garlic cloves and press them into your mix. Add salt, bit of curry, bit of thyme and bit of chili powder or black paper. Mix it again. It is important that garlic is pressed separately from onion etc.
If you do not like garlic because of heartburn, there is an easy way to illuminate the problem. There is kind of kernel inside of garlic clove. So, cut a clove in 2 halves vertically and get rid of that kernel. Then use your garlic as usual.
Now is the preparation of the peppers part. You need to get reed of pepper’s stalk and everything inside of a pepper. If you have never done it before, I suggest you buy couple of spare peppers, as it is likely you will mess up at the beginning.
Stuff your papers generously and put them into empty saucepan very tight to each other. You will get kind of two levels.
Also put there about 12-15 peppercorns, 5-7 skinned (but whole) garlic cloves, salt and 5-6 table spoons of Ketchup or tomato paste. I use Ketchup - it gives nice flavor.
Now add boiling water (that is when you need a kettle) that all your papers drown in it (water has to be above at an inch). Switch on a cooker to the maximum heat. In an order that peppers were not float, you need to create some kind of a press - cover them by a plate (bottom up), fill smaller saucepan with water and put above a plate.
Cook it for about 30-40 minutes. Heat has to be regulated in a case of overflow.
Serve hot with soured cream. Do not use regular or double cream - stuffed peppers are not strawberries!
Bon appetite!