With even more jasmine rice in my pantry, I wanted to use it in a unique, Turkish-inspired way.
Turkish Dolma (Stuffed Peppers)
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients (6 stuffed peppers)
- 1 white onion, chopped
- 1 hot green pepper, diced
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup jasmine rice, uncooked
- salt & pepper
- 1/4 cup currants
- 6 green bell peppers
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tomato, sliced
- Extra veggies — hot green pepper, zucchini, tomato — for sauce (optional)
*Note: In the outline below, I only make 4 servings, but there was enough rice to make 6.
Instructions
Begin by chopping the onion. Slice the hot green pepper length-wise and remove the seeds and inside skin and then dice it.
Sautee the onions and pepper with olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan on medium-high heat until the onion softens a bit – about 2 minutes.
Add the jasmine rice and stir for approximately one minute.
Once the onions have become transparent, put in the currants, salt, and pepper.
Give the mixture a good stir and then add 3 cups water.
Cover the pot and let simmer until the rice has absorbed all the water; however, the rice won’t seem completely finished, since it’ll go through some more cooking later when stuffed into the peppers.
Speaking of peppers, it’s time to prep them.
Simply cut off the top of the bell pepper, about 1 inch from the top in order to preserve the cap. remove the seeds and “flesh†inside each pepper.
Now stuff ‘em until full, but not burgeoning.
In a small pot (that is small enough to hug the peppers so that they are able to stand up straight when places side-by-side), add about 2 cups of water and 2 tbsp of tomato paste and stir together on medium-low heat. When you put the peppers into the pot, you don’t want the water to exceed going 3/4 up the height of the pepper.
Since my peppers tend to fall over when I try to place them upright in the pot, I like to add other things to the mix to help them hold their balance. In addition to pouring in the leftover rice, I also like to add hot peppers, tomatoes, and sometimes zucchini, depending on how much space I need to fill.
Atop each, upright-standing stuffed pepper, place a tomato slice.
Cap each one off…
Cover and let simmer on low or medium-low for approximately 30 minutes, keeping pace with the tenderness of the pepper.
The house is going to smell pretty unbelievable. And then this happens:
Serve with the sauce and other vegetables that were thrown in there. Garnish with parsley or mint. Generally, this dish is served cold, but I don’t really have the delayed appetite for that.
Enjoy!
xo Aylin