Stuffed Peppers

I haven't made these in a long time and I have a hankering for them. Not a real recipe, just sauté ground beef with onions, mix with rice cooked in stock, stuff the peppers, top with tomato sauce and bake until done. I tried a vegetarian version last year, but wasn't all that pleased with it. What are your variations or techniques?

It's the one thing I zap in a microwave. I put a piece of cheese on top and sometimes add Parmesan to the meat/rice mixture.

From The New York Times International Cook Book by Craig Claiborne:

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS TUSCANY STYLE:

6 Green peppers
1/4 C Olive oil
1 C Chopped Onions
1/2 tsp Mince garlic
1 lb Ground meat (beef, pork, veal, lamb, turkey, or combination)
Best combo: 6 oz pork, 6 oz veal, 4 oz beef.
2/3 C Grated Romano cheese
1/4 C Minced Italian parsley
2 Eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Additional olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Trim stems from peppers and remove seeds and membranes; parboil five minutes. Heat oil in skillet, and cook onions till golden. Add meat and garlic, and separate and stir with wooden fork until red goes away. Stir in half the cheese, all the parsley, eggs, salt, and pepper. Stuff the mixture into the parboiled peppers. Arrange in one or two deep, straight sided casserole(s), two 1 1/2 quart soufflé dishes do fine. Sprinkle tops with remaining cheese and additional olive oil. Cover with casserole top or aluminum foil and bake for an hour. Recipe halves easily.

Another option: Top with Marinara sauce and then sprinkle on cheese. Omit additional OO.

This is a dish I love to make. Total comfort food. The only immutable is that the peppers are always red.

Variables for protein : tuna, pork, beef, sausage,chorizo....
Variables for fillers: bulgur, rice. seasoned bread crumbs, sundried tomatoes, fresh and /or dried mushrooms...
Variables for seasonings: smoked pimienton, curry, cilantro...........
Variables for braising liquid: marinara, tomato ragu, mushroom ragu, stock

Often a vehicle for leftovers that are stretched with whatever is necessary to fill in the space. Very frequently they are vegetarian.

Sorry that this is sketchy but I never use a recipe, just a basic technique: fill raw red pepper shells with
a mixture of protein, carb extender, sauteed onions and garlic, seasonings, beaten egg. Drizzle with seasoned
braising liquid, cover and bake.

Christina, you are right. Total comfort food.
My Mom made the best stuffed peppers. Howie, she did exactly what you do with the filling, but instead of stock, she used canned tomato soup, and topped with shredded cheddar cheese. Very much a 1950's "good housekeeping" version, but excellent none-the-less.

Two I can offer here that are slightly different are a sorta Tex-Mex version with ground or leftover pork and/or chorizo, black beans, jalapeno, cheese. Second, with anchovy, olives, pine nuts, raisins & bread crumbs.

[Jenise]

I haven't made these in a long time and I have a hankering for them. Not a real recipe, just sauté ground beef with onions, mix with rice cooked in stock, stuff the peppers, top with tomato sauce and bake until done. I tried a vegetarian version last year, but wasn't all that pleased with it. What are your variations or techniques?

I personally find a lot of just-baked versions a bit too dry--at least as a main course item--and prefer instead to braise the stuffed peppers in some kind of liquid. Used to mix a few things around but have found that diced Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes with a splash of white wine makes an excellent braising liquid (when the filling itself is well-seasoned) without further embellishment.

Another favorite is a deconstructed version with a lot of middle eastern accents. I make a fried rice of sorts using cooked rice and/or bulghur wheat and ground lamb with a lot of mint, allspice, etc, and serve that atop a bed of stir-fried green bell peppers and onions.

Howie,

Bell peppers are the one thing that I do not eat. However, my Nana made stuffed peppers a lot. Hers were always stuffed with Italian flavored breadcrumbs, parm, crushed garlic, olive oil, and sauteed sweet sausage or crispy proscuitto . Then they were braised in a light marinara sauce. When I was young and liked bell peppers, I loved them.

I use kasha and wild mushrooms. Braising liquid is a light broth with a bit of shallot, tomato, thyme, and white wine.

[Jenise]

When I was young and liked bell peppers, I loved them.

Why don't you like them anymore?

There's something odd about bell peppers. In my experience, I've found more people dislike them than most other veges. And I don't know why. I wonder, though, if those people would like green chiles?

There's something odd about bell peppers. In my experience, I've found more people dislike them than most other veges. And I don't know why.

Naw, Brussells sprouts have to take that honour, surely?

I know what you mean, but people have expressed bell pepper dislikes to me many, many times as in pizzas, salads, etc. But I have never had anyone tell me they don't like Brussel sprouts (and I don't).

I like cooked bell peppers, but not raw ones, or those on pizza. The raw ones taste like Chilian red wine to me.

See?

See?

Interesting.

I posted a poll - let's see what people think of these two vegetables!

Re bell peppers, include me out...or is that in!
We grow bell peppers and will eat them in any configuration, raw, pickled, cooked.
And you can put Brussels sprouts in the plus column also.

I don't know why I don't like them...it all happened right after college. I really don't know why. My Mother is the same way. She doesn't like them either, but did growing up. I will literally eat anything else. I can not tolerate cooked green peppers, even if they are picked out of the food, the whole meal has been tainted for me. I can *almost* tolerate raw or roasted red peppers...but even then, I am not thrilled. I can smell the bell peppers when I walk into a grocery store...ewwww.

It's funny because I was (before learning about wine) never big on moderately priced (read cheap) CA Cabernet...fine with other cheapy wines though. When I began learning about wine, and finding out that a lot of CS sometimes have a "bell pepper" component on the nose, I thought "aha" no wonder I didn't like it!

I love green chili's though, and habernos, and thai birds...love the hot stuff. To me I taste more heat. I am not big on jalepeno's though, since they taste very bell peppery (with a little kick). I knew it had to be an evil pepper (the jalepenos) that caused all that salmonella not to long ago, and not my beloved cilantro...LOL!!

"Maria is to Bell Peppers as Cynthia is to Cilantro"

(ps, I love Brussels Sprouts! )

I don't know why I don't like them...it all happened right after college. I really don't know why. My Mother is the same way. She doesn't like them either, but did growing up. I will literally eat anything else. I can not tolerate cooked green peppers, even if they are picked out of the food, the whole meal has been tainted for me. I can *almost* tolerate raw or roasted red peppers...but even then, I am not thrilled. I can smell the bell peppers when I walk into a grocery store...ewwww. (ps, I love Brussels Sprouts! )

Maria, I have a suggestion regarding roasted red peppers. (you can use the canned ones) take the roasted red pepper and stuff it with a mixture of feta cheese that you have added just little milk or cream to. The object here is to make the cheese into a paste. Then heavily lace the cheese paste with chopped fresh dill. You can either stuff the whole pepper, or do as I do and split the pepper and load the cheese mixture on the inside. I eat this cold as a "different" salad or side dish, It seems to go well with a lot of different foods too.

Cook's Illustrated has a neat technique for stuffed peppers: cut them lengthwise, leaving the stem on.

Fill the peppers, then cover the filled end with a bit of aluminum foil -- crimping up the edges a half inch helps later.

Put the peppers filled side down on a rack in the middle of your oven, after piercing the foil a few times with a skewer.

Bake at 450F for 20 to 25 minutes until the pepper skins are speckled brown or black.

Invert the peppers, remove the foil, and top with a little sauce and perhaps cheese.

Bake for another five minutes. Let them rest for five minutes before serving.