Stuffed Peppers

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One of the dishes I recently mentioned (in last week’s Tapas post) was stuffed peppers.

For this dish, I first needed some Braised Rice and making this was the most time consuming part of the preparation.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 (half) a peeled carrot,
• 1/2 (half) a peeled onion,
• 1/2 (half) a good stick of celery,
• 1 Knorr vegetable stock cube, made up to a pint with boiling water
• 1 clove garlic,
• 1 cup of Carmargue rice,
• Chilli oil,
• seasonings.

First of all, I chopped the vegetables into the smallest possible dice (fine brunoise) and crushed the garlic. I put about a tablespoon of chilli oil into a pan and added the chopped vegetables. We grow our own chillies here for making chilli oil, so we always have a ready supply – if you have none, use any type you like.

Gently cook the vegetables and garlic for about a minute before adding the rice. Do not try to ‘fry’ any of this, you are just cooking gently in oil at this stage – NOT frying. Stir well. I’ve said that you need a cup of rice, but really – I didn’t weigh it or measure it, I’m hopeless with quantities at home, but that amount is about right.

Once the rice has all been covered with oil and you can see that it has begun to change colour (slightly off white), begin to add the hot stock. Add about half a pint at this stage and continue to stir well. Turn the heat down and partially cover the pan with a lid – leave for about five or six minutes before returning to add a little more stock and stirring well. At this stage, you can add some salt and pepper and maybe (I did) some mixed herbs.

After another five or six minutes, you can add the rest of the stock and if necessary, some water to complete the cooking. When the rice is cooked you can break a piece between your teeth with no resistance (i.e. no hard bits) – but make sure it isn’t soggy.

Now, this is the same (similar) method for Risotto – and technically, braised rice should be long grain rice and cooked in the oven (i.e. add all the stock, cover the pan and place in the oven for about 15-20 minutes) but I was using a mid grain rice and needed to know when it was ready – not after 🙂

By the way – this made far too much rice for the small peppers I was using. There is easily enough to feed two or three hungry adults!

Preparing the Pepper (capsicum)

It is quite important to buy the right kind of pepper if you wish your stuffed pepper to stand up on the plate (I wasn’t bothered and used small pointed yellow peppers). These peppers would fall over: these would not.

Carefully remove the top of the pepper. The lid.

If you cut gently around the pepper, just cutting through the flesh, you should be able to remove the stem with quite a lot of the seeds inside. Even if you don’t, you will still need to remove all of the seeds and all of the pith – the white semi-flesh that clings to the ribs which hold the pepper together. It is this pith that tastes bitter – so do please remove it. Try not to – DO NOT – cut a hole in the pepper 🙂

Some purists also like to remove the cellophane-like skin of the pepper but that’s up to you.

Fill the now empty pepper with your braised rice, place the lid back on top and set aside until you’re ready to bake. Bake for about 20-30 minutes until the rice has warmed through and the pepper has started to change colour slightly.

Serve with lots of crispy bread and lashings of beer 🙂