If you're like me you hate stuffed peppers, and moreover think that cooked green peppers are one of the single worst tastes in the world. Honestly, using a fat green pepper as the vessel and main flavouring for a stuffing of grainy meat and rice is Looney Tunes.
But say this time around you decided to stuff colourful, sweet bell peppers with a delicious chicken mixture? Now we're talking.
I got this idea from Giada De Laurentiis, after watching her stuff peppers and zucchini boats on TV. Like hers, my version isn't too saucy, overcooked or goopy, but instead, fresh, pert and filling.
And perhaps best of all, they don't taste a thing like green peppers.
STUFFED TRI-COLOUR PEPPERS
(serves 4)
Ingredients:
1 small onion, grated or finely chopped
1 large egg, beaten
1 Tbsp herbs de Provence
1 Tbsp olive oil
about 6 black olives, chopped
2 Tbsp ketchup
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup breadcrumbs or matzo meal
1 lb ground chicken
3 large bell peppers, 1 orange, 1 red, 1 yellow, halved and seeded with white veins removed
about 1 cup tomato sauce
Method:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Drizzle some oil into a baking dish that will fit 6 pepper halves.
In a bowl, mix together all other ingredients, except for peppers and tomato sauce.
Lay prepped peppers in the baking dish and stuff with chicken mixture -- really pack it in there and mound it up -- then top each pepper with some tomato sauce.
Bake in the preheated oven, uncovered, for about 45 minutes or until peppers are soft and the dish is starting to brown.
