I’ve been a fan of Jamie Oliver’s recipes for many years, so when my sister-in-law bought me ‘Jamie Does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France’ for Christmas I was itching to try some of the delicious dishes that filled the pages. I love that these recipes are inspired by places I adore, or that I desperately want to visit, and where I’ve eaten some amazing food.
The first recipe I tried was from the Greece section; the recipe was for stuffed tomatoes and peppers with a pistachio and rice filling. As it was just for Brendan and I, I decided to scale down the recipe slightly (although not enough, as there was still loads of the rice leftover – which made for a delicious lunch the next day!) and just use 2 peppers…this was perfect for two people, so just adjust the recipe as needed, and add some beef tomatoes if you like. I also couldn’t find any pistachios (well, none that I could afford anyway…a small bag for £5 was not OK with me!) so I just left them out completely. I’m sure they would taste amazing in this dish but it was really delicious without them too. Below is my version of Jamie’s recipe, not the original from his book…
Ingredients:
- 2 large red peppers
- olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled & finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
- 200g long-grain rice
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 fresh red chilli, deseeded & finely chopped
- sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
- 600ml organic vegetable stock
- 100g feta cheese, crumbled
- small bunch fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- 1 Tbsp tomato puree
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Halve the peppers lengthways, keeping the stalks intact. With a small sharp knife and a spoon, carefully get rid of the seeds. Place the peppers, cut side up, in an appropriately sized deep dish or roasting tray (they are supposed to fit snugly, but mine didn’t and they still worked well!)
Add a lug of olive oil to a large pan and heat on a low-medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the onions and garlic and cook for about 10 minutes, until softened but not coloured. Add the rice, oregano, chilli and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Pour in 300ml of stock and cook for around 7 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly so the rice gets nicely coated in everything and doesn’t stick to the pan. Remove from the heat and stir in the crumbled feta and fresh parsley.
Carefully stuff the hollowed-out peppers with your hot rice mixture so it just comes to the top – make sure you don’t overfill them, though, because the rice will expand as it cooks. Mix the tomato puree with the remaining stock and pour into the baking dish around the veg. Cover the dish really tightly with foil and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes before serving (Jamie suggests serving with salad & bread, but we just ate these by themselves as a lighter meal).
