Written by Chris Sunday, 20 September 2009 00:00

In the course of history food lovers have probably tried to stuff every kind of vegetable that exists with the exception of the very small or the very thin. Around Southern Europe and the Middle East people commonly stuff tomatoes, eggplant (aborigine), zucchini (curette), cabbage leaves, vine leaves, peppers, onions and even marrow flowers. The stuffing in most cases is a combination of meat (pork, lamb or beef) and rice. The variations on the stuffing are almost endless and depend on the region. The Armenians, for example, stuff vine and cabbage leaves with minced beef or lamb and rice with coriander, dill, mint, pepper, cinnamon and melted butter and sometimes even chestnuts and peas. The Iranians use a similar meat-rice mix with split yellow peas, and a variety of herbs In Greek cuisine there is a similar mix of pork/beef/lamb and rice with tomato, onion and parsley.

Above is a picture of my variation done with a Halloween feel to it :-) More vegetable stuffing below...

Stuffed Vegetables

Ingredients (to stuff about 10 vegetables)

• Any vegetable or mixture of your choice. Here I've used bell peppers, aubergine and zucchini.
• 1-2 litres of vegetable or meat stock

Stuffing

• 1 large onion, finely chopped.
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 500-600g ground lamb/pork/beef
• 1 cup of short grain rice washed and drained
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 large ripe tomato
• 2 tbsp parsley and 1 tbsp mint (both finely chopped)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cloves garlic
• ground black pepper
• 1 cup of water

Preparation

To prepare the vegetables, cut off the stalk of the pepper/aubergine etc and use an apple corer to remove the inside. A thin sharp knife is used to even out the sides.

For the stuffing, fry the onion in olive oil until soft. Add the meat and fry gently for 8-10 minutes. Add garlic and other ingredients. The rice is added raw. Heat for a further 5 minutes while mixing. Add the water, mix thoroughly and turn off the heat.

Now stuff your vegetables carefully and place them in a deep pot with the opening at the top. The vegetables should should fill the base of the pot otherwise they will fall and spill the mix so if there are any gaps you can fill them with peeled potatoes or carrots.

Add enough of the stock to the pot between the vegetables so that it surrounds the vegetables but does not cover them.

On top of the vegetables place a heavy heat-proof plate and put the lid on the pot too. Simmer for about 60 minutes.