This was published 9 years ago
Get stuffed
A stuffed vegetable is a super way to get more nutrients and wow factor in a dish.
By Frank Camorra
Think about stuffed vegetables and you might see a soggy capsicum bulging with leftover rice. Push that image from your mind – there are so many things to stuff with different grains that taste great.
My best memory of stuffed food is in a home kitchen in Venice, where the daughter of a local fisherman filled the sweetest tomatoes with incredibly fresh tiny prawns mixed with mayonnaise and fresh herbs. It was the best prawn cocktail ever.
Bulging with goodness: Bullhorn chillies stuffed with preserved lemon freekah.Credit: Marcel Aucar
You can use meat as a stuffing, as I have with the sweet potato recipe, or freekah as in the peppers. Burghal wheat (aka bulghur) and quinoa work too, and paella makes an excellent stuffing. In the bullhorn chilli recipe, shanklish is a soft aged cheese ball often rolled in herbs; you can find it in Middle Eastern grocery stores.
For a vegetarian filling for the sweet potato, cook some onions with a few cloves of garlic, add fresh chopped tomatoes and cook until thick, add a tin of white beans and stir in some chopped parsley. Stuff the potatoes, top with grated parmesan and enjoy with a green salad.
Sweet potato stuffed with spiced lamb
4 medium sweet potatoes
olive oil
400g lean lamb mince
1 medium brown onion, finely diced
1 small red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1½ tbsp currants
2 tbsp mint, chopped
salt and pepper
Heat the oven to 180C. Wipe the skins of the sweet potatoes and bake them for about an hour. While they are baking, pour a little olive oil into a frying pan over a high heat, then add the minced lamb in a thin layer. Brown the lamb evenly, breaking it up and stirring from time to time. Remove the lamb from the pan, drain in a sieve if there is a lot of extra moisture, then put it in a bowl. Add the onion to the pan with a little olive oil over a medium heat and let it colour lightly. Stir the chilli into the onion with the ground spices and currants. When the chilli is soft, add mixture to the lamb with the mint and season with salt and pepper. When the potatoes are cooked through, remove them from the oven and cool slightly. Take a long slice from the top of each and use a teaspoon to scoop out the flesh from each skin, being careful to not pierce the sides. Chop the potato flesh into small pieces and mix with the lamb. Put the shells in a roasting tray and spoon in the lamb and potato mix (put any remaining mix alongside in the tray, it will crisp up when baking and taste great). Bake for 15-20 minutes until hot.
Serves 2-4
Bullhorn chillies stuffed with preserved lemon freekah
1 brown onion, roughly diced
3 sticks celery, diced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp butter
200g freekah
400ml water
2 tomatoes, diced
½ bunch coriander including stalks, chopped
½ tbsp preserved lemon, finely diced
½ a ball of shanklish
6 green bullhorn chillies
extra virgin olive oil
Sweat the onions, celery, garlic and bay leaves in the butter in a medium-size saucepan. Add the freekah and water and bring to a simmer then cover with a lid and reduce heat to low. Cook until liquid has evaporated, about 15 minutes, then remove from the heat and cool slightly. While the freekah is cooking, preheat oven to 180C. Put the cooked freekah into a bowl, mix with the tomatoes, coriander, preserved lemon and crumbled shanklish, reserving some of the cheese for the topping. Lay the chillies on a cutting board and slice them lengthways on one side. Open the cut gently so you don't crack the pepper, remove the seeds then spoon in the stuffing. Crumble the remaining shanklish over the top, drizzle with olive oil then bake for 20 minutes.
Serves 4-6
TIP
The sweet potato dish is good with tzatziki; if you can't find bullhorn chillies, use red capsicum instead.