I had about 4-5 ounces of lamb and a some rice left after making my lamb loco moco. Not much really. I've been swamped at work and didn't want to make a special trip to the market, so what to do? I looked out into the garden and around the kitchen and decided to make some stuffed peppers….lamb, rice, herbs, onion….we had a bunch of red bell peppers lying around, why not?
It turned out pretty well……
I also made a Shakshuka
like sauce which brought everything together for the dish, which is so easy it's criminal. The only thing was the wait which was 45 minutes in the oven, but gave me time to make the sauce.
I actually went ahead and measured everything out except the oil, salt, and pepper. This is for two, you can just multiply everything out for more peppers.
Red Peppers Stuffed with Lamb and Rice:
2 Red Bell Peppers
1/4 lb ground lamb
1 1/2 cup cooked jasmine rice
2 Tb minced mint
3 Tb minced cilantro
2 Tb thinly sliced scallions
2 Tb finely minced or grated garlic
1 tsp crumbled Turkish oregano
1 tsp Spanish paprika
1 Tb ground cumin
1 tsp ground chilies
1-2 Tb olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
water
– Preheat oven to 375
– Cut the tops off the peppers and level off the bottoms of the peppers. Remove the center, discard the seeds, and trim out the interior of the pepper.
– Combine the all the ingredients except the peppers and water in a bowl.
– Stuff the peppers
– Place the peppers in a pan, I used a small cast iron pan I have and add about 1/2 inch of water.
– Place tops back on the peppers and place in the oven for 30 minutes.
– After 30 minutes remove the tops of the peppers, these should already be pretty soft.
– Drizzle olive oil on the meat filling and put back in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
You may want to serve this with a salty tomato based sauce, or something similar….think of the flavor profile of lamb. This was fairly gamey and went real well with the sauce I made. I'll probably do this again soon.