Jasmine Rice Turkish Dolma

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I made these last year but recently made them again and felt they deserved a repost. I used jasmine rice, but traditionally you use a white rice. I just thought the colors were pretty striking and the taste a bit different and delicious. Living in Turkey, I’ve become accustomed to dolmas on a regular basis, so the basic recipe is something I like to expand on. Hope you guys enjoy this one!

Turkish Dolma (Stuffed Peppers)

by GK

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Keywords: boil lunch dinner vegan jasmine rice tomato green pepper bell pepper Turkish Middle-Eastern

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
  • 4 green bell peppers
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tomato, sliced
  • Extra veggies — hot green pepper, zucchini, tomato — for sauce (optional)

Instructions

Begin by chopping the onion. Slice the hot green pepper length-wise and remove the seeds and inside skin and then dice it.

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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.

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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. Stuff each one with the rice until full, but not burgeoning.

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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 tablespoons 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.

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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.

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Atop each, upright-standing stuffed pepper, place a tomato slice. Cap each one off with its pepper top. Cover and let simmer on low or medium-low for approximately 30 minutes, keeping pace with the tenderness of the pepper.

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Enjoy!

Bon Appetit!

xo Aylin

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