How to make tasty Italian stuffed peppers

A mediterranean recipe

A rich and calorific dish, made mainly during the summer, stuffed peppers are a typical mediterranean dish. It was born as a poor dish, to use all the leftovers and they have gradually become a refined meal.

Peppers have latin american origins: they were imported in Europe thank to the Christopher Columbus’ trip.

The filling can be made with different ingredients, but for this recipe the main character is the breadcrumbs as per Sicilian traditions.

Difficulty:

Low

Preparation:

20 mins

Cooking:

1 hour

Portions:

4 people

Ingredients:

• 4 big and regular shaped peppers;
• 1 onion;
• 12 spoonfuls of breadcrumbs;
• 400g chopped tomatoes;
• 300g mozzarella;
• 6 spoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese;
• 2 spoonfuls of raisins;
• 1 spoonful of pine nuts;
• 70ml extra virgin olive oil;
• Salt and pepper q.s.
• Butter q.s.

Method

1. Wash peppers. Cut the top with a small knife and take all the seeds away.

1. Insert your fingers into the pepper to take all the fibres away making sure the pepper remains whole.

1. Rinse the peppers with some tap water and put them away with their own “lids”.
2. Finely chop up the onion and brown it with some olive oil in a large pan for a few minutes.
3. Add salt, pepper, pine nuts and raisins.
4. Add the breadcrumbs and sear for a few minutes stirring continuously.
5. Add Parmesan cheese, chopped tomatoes and mozzarella (cut in cubes) and stir, the mozzarella has to melt.
6. Turn the oven on at 230°C.
7. Fill the peppers with the breadcrumbs mixture, reseal them with their own lids and put them in a baking tray.
8. Put a knob of butter and some salt on each pepper and bake for an hour at 230°C making sure you turn them after half an hour of cooking.
9. For best results serve warm (not hot!).

Tips:

If you like tomato sauce you can add some tomato sauce previously cooked on top of the peppers 15 minutes before they are ready.

Have you ever made stuffed peppers? What do you do differently? Let’s compare our recipes, comment this post! And if you try my recipe please let me know what you think!

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