Stuffed peppers are festive and easy to make. Vegetables, meat, and rice work great together and enhance each other's taste.
Peppers: I use the long, pale green to yellow, rather thin variety of peppers called Italian frying peppers or sweet Italian peppers. They are more likely to be found on farmers market in season than in a supermarket. Pepperoncini peppers are very mild and are suitable, too. Random hybrids of this varieties can have red or orange spots. Actually, the redder are peppers, the better. Fleshy bell peppers are better fresh. Eggplants and tomatoes can be stuffed as well, and cooked in the same pot. Use large beefsteak tomatoes and medium to small thick eggplants.
Meat: ground meat for stuffed peppers needs not to be as lean as for meatballs. Beef, buffalo, and lamb are good for this recipe. I don't cook with pork but I believe it can be used, too. Poultry is too lean and mild for pepper stuffing: the result will be dry and bland. Chili meat, fatter and more coarsely ground than usual ground meat, works great. A pound of ground meat makes ten to fifteen pieces, depending on the size of vegetables.
Mix ground meat with uncooked white rice, 1 1/2 to 2 cup of rice per pound of meat. Use long-grain variety, like Basmati. Add one large grated, ground or finely chopped onion. Add 1 tsp salt, a generous pinch of ground black pepper, and some nutmeg. Add chopped parsley and basil, as much or as little as you like. Mix well by hand. It feels like kneading, because the mixture is very thick and sticky.
Clean the peppers. If you are a perfectionist, cut around the stem with a paring knife and remove the seeds, leaving a portion of the pepper around the stem intact. Otherwise, cut off the top of a pepper and remove a stem and seeds with some pepper. You still can use this pepper later.
Clean the tomatoes or/and eggplants, if using. For tomatoes: cut the upper quarter off. Scoop out the seeds but don't discard. For eggplants: cut off the stem and leaves. Cut each eggplant lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and fibrous inner parts. Keep those, as well.
Shape the stuffing like small balls or short cylinders, and put them inside your peppers. The stuffing should not fill peppers too tightly: the rice in stuffing will expand and tear peppers apart, or suck the juices out of meat making dry, bland peppers. Fill the tomatoes and eggplants.
Cut a large onion in thick rings and place the rings on the bottom of a pot. Three- or four-quart pot with a fitting lid will do. Otherwise, use a large high-walled skillet. Place the peppers open side up in the pot next to each other (or lay them on a side carefully). Put other vegetables in the pot. Add tomato and eggplant seeds in the pot. Even if you use only peppers, add a quart-size can of cooked tomatoes, like Muir Glen's peeled tomatoes, to your pot. Add enough water to fill the pot halfway. Add bay leaf, peppercorn and any herbs and spices you like. A tablespoon of sugar wouldn't make the dish perceivably sweet, but will enhance other flavors. Put the lid on and cook on medium to small fire for thirty to forty minutes. Add a cup of sour cream, or a can of tomato paste, or both, and cook for another fifteen minutes. Serve with sauce, two or three pieces per serving.
Lazy version: cut onions, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes in thick rings and place half of the vegetables on the bottom of your pot. Shape meat and rice mixture in 2.5" to 3" balls and place them on top of the vegetables. Add more vegetables. Add enough water to fill the pot halfway. Add bay leaf, whole peppercorns, and any herbs you wish. Put the lid on and simmer for thirty minutes. Add a cup of sour cream or tomato paste or both and cook another fifteen minutes, if you wish. Serve simmered rice meatballs along with cooked vegetables.
See also: kitchen, meatballs, frying pan, chicken soup, knedle, kitchen knives, cooking rice.