Hey Lawrence, bring me the camel, please!!
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 2 € pp)
- 6 relatively small red peppers
- Salt
- 150 g bulgur
- 0,8 litre vegetable stock
- 1 medium onion
- 30-40 small black raisins
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- EV olive oil
- Chopped parsley or cilantro
- 1 pepperoncino, minced
- roasted almonds cut in slices
Bulgur is a cereal, made from cracked wheats. We can find it in many versions, parboiled or not, whole grain or not and in even more dimensions. So, I would advise you, that the first time you prepare this dish with a specific kind of bulgur, to use a larger quantity than the indicated here (and also do the same with the stock) in order to obtain enough stuffing for your peppers, as a non parboiled one will have a totally different final weight and volume, compared a parboiled.
Bulgur is very common in Arabic countries, where it is made in many ways. It is also excellent when mixed with common flour and as a part of a sweet preparation.
We begin with the peppers. We wash them, we cut them vertically and we remove the seeds, the veins and the placenta. We salt them well internally and we leave them cut side down for about an hour to get rid of most of their liquids and to become tender. We re-wash them internally to remove the excess salt and we set aside.
In a skillet we heat a little bit of olive oil and we add the onion, minced and the cumin. We gently fry till the onion becomes transparent. We add the bulgur and gradually the hot stock. I would suggest that you initially follow the package instructions for the required time, as parboiled bulgur needs less time than the whole grain one. The most important thing is that you check bulgur´s cooking every 2-3 minutes (you have to do this only the first time you use each particular kind of bulgur) and to stop cooking it when it is almost done. 5 minutes before cooking ending we add the raisins.
When ready, we stuff the red peppers with the bulgur mixture, pressing it lightly in order to eliminate eventual gaps.
We preheat the oven to 180 o C and we bake the peppers for about 30 minutes, then raise the heat to 210 o C and continue baking, until the surface of the bulgur mixture turns crispy.
We serve, garnishing with parsley oil, minced pepperoncino and roasted almonds.
