Romania: Stuffed Peppers

Most of the Romanian foods require some preparation and cooking time. Long time ago, women were home keeping up the house and preparing delicious meals for the men. That is way some of the Romanian dishes require longer time for cooking. But they are delicious! Trust me! I know!

Ingredients: 2 lbs ground beef (better yet 1 lb ground lean beef and 1 lb ground pork), 8-10 small green peppers (4-5 medium), 1/2 Vidalia onion, 2 tbls rice,  1-2 tbls olive oil (vegetable oil), fresh parsley, salt, pepper, flour, sugar, tomato paste, sour cream or plain yogurt

Choose fresh green peppers that are of a good quality, hard and no soft spots or any other marks. To remove the seeds make a small enough opening to just remove the seeds and wash the inside with cold water.  

Filing Preparation: In a frying pan add oil, fine chopped onion and parsley (one of those electric choppers are excellent) and washed and cleaned rice. Cook at medium heat till onion and rice start to soften. Add about 1\2 cup of water and let simmer for about 3-4 min. Drain as much as you can and mix together with the meat adding salt and pepper.

The sauce: In a small pan add 2 tbls butter (or margarine) and 2 tbls of flour. After butter is absorbed by the flour pour in a cup of cold water and mix well with a wooden spoon. When it start boiling add 1 1/2 tbls of tomato paste, bit of salt and pepper and 1\2 tsp of sugar. Mix well and let it simmer covered for 3-4 min.

Putting all together: Fill the peppers with the meat mixture almost to the opening (the mixture will expand due to the rice content). If you feel that the opening is too big and mixture might come out during cooking, you can cover with a slice of tomato. If you have any filling mixture left over, well, buy more peppers :)  Arrange filled peppers in a pot standing up. Pour over the sauce and add water to cover the peppers. Cover and bring to a boil. Then move in the oven (preheated at 375) and let boil in the oven. Check time to time but do not add any more water. When peppers are soft almost to the point to come apart is ready. Add 3-4 tbls of sour cream and cook for another few minutes for the sour cream to blend in. Take out and serve with sour cream or yogurt.

I hope you enjoy this Romanian dish.