Day 38: Vegan Stuffed Bell Peppers (ΓΕΜΙΣΤΕΣ ΠΙΠΕΡΙΕΣ)

Many cultures make stuffed vegetable dishes.  Some stuff leaves, and others stuff vegetables.  Greeks are known for stuffing all kinds of things!  And, each time, the dish has a differnt name and twist to the flavour.  We Greeks are known for stuffing cabbage leaves, grape vine leaves, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, and zucchini flowers.  Each of these dishes has similarities but has some distinct differences, depending on the region of Greece.  Today, we wanted to try a new recipe.  We used the book Culinaria Greece to find exactly what we wanted.  The recipe we followed hails from the North Aegean islands region of Greece, where fresh vegetarian cuisine is on the menu all the time -- sometimes more than fish or meat.  Fresh vegetable and rice dishes are part of the everydaay culinary life in this area, and most of them can be served either hot or cold, without affecting the flavour or quality of the food.


This is the first time we are using this recipe from this book.  We often make γεμιστά the same way we were taught by our family recipes.  It is a dish that can vary from household to household, family member to family member, and from vegetarian to carnivorous.  Adding or omitting ground beef to most of these recipes is often insignificant to the end product.  We did notice, however, that a recipe for Stuffed Onions would absolutely need the ground beef because that is the entire filling!


This cookbook offers so many wonderful recipes, some history, some cultural perspective -- yet, we often get caught up in reading the pages instead of cooking from them.  The pictures are beautiful and make you drool at the dish even before having tasted any one of them.  With that in mind, we learned that we should not look at this book when we are hungry, because we are then asking for trouble!


Anyway, we followed this recipe because it looked easy enough, the picture in the book looked delicious, and we had all of the ingredients on hand.  We also noted that the preparation time was short, which would allow us more time for eating and enjoying rather than cooking, just like the folk on the islands!


To prepare this recipe, you will need the following:
4 large bell peppers
1 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 sprigs parsley, finely chopped
1/2 bunch dill, finely chopped
3 sprigs mint, finely chopped
1 cup rice (converted rice is best)
1 2/3 cups tomato juice
1 TBSP tomato paste
zwieback, grated
salt, pepper to taste.

We made a few small adjustments in the ingredient list.  For example, we did not have a large onion, so we used two smaller onions.  Same with the grated zwieback-- the only dry crumbs we had on hand were Panko bread crumbs, but we thought that was close enough to zwieback.  The rice is a converted rice (a.k.a. par-boiled rice) but we think that we could have used Arborio rice to contribute to an interesting texture.  We followed the directions as they were written, which we will note the points that were a little unclear to us at the end of this.


Their directions basically tell us to do the following:  Clean the peppers.  Cut the lid off and scrape the seeds and the pith from the center of the peppers.  Set them aside.  Start the filling by first cooking the onions in half the oil.  Then, add the dill, parsley, mint, and rice.  Stir this well.  Add half the tomato juice, a little water, and the tomato paste.  Season with salt and pepper and cook until the rice is half done.  Then, stuff the peppers and replace the lids.  Next pour the remaining tomato juice and remaining olive oil over the stuffed, capped peppers.  Sprinkle the grated zwieback (Panko) on top of the peppers and bake at 350° F until the rice is tender.


Usually, these would be easy directions to follow, but some of it seemed a little too different from what we knew.  We are showing you the step by step directions to the book's instructions, and here they are in layman's terms:


Clean the peppers.  Make sure to scrape out all of the white pith from the inside, because that is the bitter flavour of the pepper.  Trim the pith from the cap, too, so that does not interfere with the end result.

Chop all of the onion, dill, parsley, and mint.  Since we used dried mint, we just had to crumble the dried leaves.  Take care not to add too many stems because they are chewy and weird in a cooked dish.

Start cooking the onions.  Pour half the olive oil in a pan and heat it well before adding the onions.  This seemed like a lot of oil -- even for a Greek.  It gets mixed in pretty well once you add the tomato juice and paste, but it still seemed like a lot.

Once the onions are soft, add the herbs.  We just dumped all of them in at the same time.  This seemed to work out, and it looked pretty in the pan.

Add the rice and half of the tomato juice.  Get everything mixed well before adding the tomato paste.  The tomato paste seemed redundant to us, especially after using the tomato juice.  But, tomato flavour is always nice, so we did not think too much on this one.

Once you add the tomato paste and get that stirred in well, season with salt and pepper.  We decided that you could let this sit on the stove with very little attention.  You want to cook this until the rice is about half way done (about 10 minutes on medium high heat).

At this point, we got the peppers in the baking pan.  Finding the right size pan was the challenge here.  It will all depend on the shape and size of the peppers.  You want to find a pan that will hold up the peppers and have enough depth for the remaining tomato juice and olive oil.  We used an 8" square pan that is 2 " deep.  Our other choice would have been a glass baking dish.

Get the peppers standing in the pan with the lids put aside.  Fill them with the hot stuffing.  We did not know how much stuffing to put in each pepper, so we started with one spoonful for each pepper, then went spoonful by spoonful all around the pan until we used all the filling.  Also, we had to remember that there needs to be enough space in the pepper to allow the rice to finish expanding.  Rice expands or  "grows" as it cooks.  So, we had to take care not to press down on the stuffing while filling each pepper.  They each ended up being about 3/4 full.

Next, put the lids on the peppers.  And, pour the remaining tomato juice and olive oil over each pepper.  We just went round and round, over the tops of the peppers (lids on) until all of the liquid was in the pan.  It would have made sense to us, initially, to pour these liquids into the peppers and then put the lid on each one, but that is not how we understood the directions.  So, we followed these words, "Replace the lids on the peppers, pour over the remaining tomato juice and oil, and sprinkle with grated zwieback."

After we poured the liquids over the lids, we sprinkled the Panko bread crumbs on top of the lids.  The ingredient list did not specify an amount of zwieback, nor did the directions.  So, we opted to put enough on top to show, but not enough to absorb all of the liquid.  It did look nice going into the oven.

Then, bake the peppers at 350° F.  The directions told us to bake "until the rice and peppers are tender." How long is that?  We did not know, either.  We guessed.  Judging by the time it takes to bake rice, we started with 30 minutes.  Then, since that was not enough, we added 10 more minutes.  The rice was close, but still needed a little more time, and the peppers were only half tender -- so we added another 15 minutes.  All in all, we found this dish took an hour in the oven.  That was not exactly given in the directions or the recipe, which is why we had to guess.  We found that one hour was perfect.

Allow the peppers to cool enough to serve, but keep warm.  They tasted better warm than they did cold, but this may be personal preference coming in play.  We did not like the cold yemista because this was particularly oily and not so nice as when it is hot or warm, the oil is flavourful and delicious, but you don't notice all the nuances of flavour unless it is warm.


Every person at the dinner table tasted this dish.  Because the peppers were so big, we used one pepper per two people.  Of course, it was not a main dish, but it was a great side for tasting purposes.  When we went around the table asking everyone what he/she thought, we were delighted to hear that it was delicious, delicate, light, flavourful, and creamy.  We were surpised that the two people who are absolute carnivores even enjoyed the vegetarian stuffed pepper.  Although, one did mention, "You know I don't like stuffed peppers if there is no meat, this was so good!"  And, for a meat-eater to say that, we know something went right with this recipe.  Another surprising comment was, "I don't like dill in food, except pickles, but this is really good.  It makes me want to eat dill all the time."  We were aware of the dill in the recipe, so it was not a surprise for that flavour to stand out while eating.


As for the peppers themselves, to match the fantastic filling, the peppers had to be something special.  We were surprised at how sweet these red bell peppers were.  Usually they would be somewhat sweet, but once they were baked with the tomato juice and the olive oil poured over them, they became soft, sweet, and succulent.  It is a thrill to see that several of the tasters who do not usually eat the pepper shell when eating γεμιστά absolutely devoured the shell.  We received comments like, "I just could not stop eating it," and, "It's like a roasted red pepper."  One person even said, "This was one of the best stuffed peppers I have ever eaten.  And, the panko made the texture so amazing!"  Remember, the panko bread crumbs were our guess and substitute for the zwieback.  But, at the end of the baking process, the panko bread crumbs really added colour without adding too much crunch to the dish.  We chose to sprinkle all around the tops, but now know that we could have put a few more.  We are pleased to know that using panko was a good choice instead of zwieback.


At the end of the meal, we looked around the table and saw that the plates with the stuffed peppers were totally empty.  A few people used bread to soak up the oily sauce remnants, and a few just used their fingers.  It was a good feeling knowing that this recipe was one that we put in the "keep" pile for the future.  Even with the few questions we had and the little bit of guessing that took place, this recipe was flavourful, rich with a variety of textures, and light in the sense that none of us felt as if we just ate an entire farm!  Perhaps there were a few things we would try differently next time, but following this recipe exactly was easy and did not take very long (about 20 minutes start to finish).  It was an enjoyable dish for all of us, and we hope it is for you, too.  Culinaria Greece is on the list of books to use when trying other new recipes.

Homily Six - To Encourage Fasting - St. Gregory Palamas

(Translated by Christopher Veniamin, Mount Thabor Publishing, Waymart, PA, 2009)

Let us, on the contrary, brethren, tell ourselves to be temperate, to fast, to keep watch, to be restrained, to be humble and to suffer hardship for our salvation. Then we shall finish this present life in a good way pleasing to God and inherit the blessed life without end. 

May we all attain to this by the grace and love towards mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory, might, honor and worship, together with His Father without beginning and the life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Source: http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.ca/2010/02/self-control-is-important-in-fasting.html)