It never ceases to amaze me how easy cooking actually is. Yet, the majority of people you talk to treat it as if it were thermonuclear physics and proudly tout their best dish as microwaved mac n cheese, when they don’t burn it. But really just the minimal amount of effort and understanding can yield bountiful meals and a whole lot of fun making them. This is why I’m kicking off a series of posts for the laymen to try to learn something about cooking, and hopefully get them in the kitchen.
Stuffin Peppers
Ingredients:
- 4 Poblano Peppers
- 1/2 a package of mushrooms
- 1/2 an onion
- few cloves of garlic
- rice
- lemon
- basil
- oregano
- turkey sausage
- jalapeno
Begin simply by getting the rice going on a side or back burner, short or medium grain always! You’ll also want to start pre-heating your oven to 375 degrees. Next you will need to roast the poblanos. They have this filmy skin on them which roasting serves to burn off as well as sort of steam the inside of the pepper making it soft. There are various ways to do it, you can hit them in the broiler or baked them in the oven, roast in a pan, or just plop on the grill if you’re outside. My favorite and the easiest is simply roasting them on your range. Get the burner going on high heat and set the peppers on top of the flame. With some tongs keep rotating them until their entire skin is crackled and charred black. Set aside to cool before peeling the skin off.
While the rice is cooking and your peppers are cooling you can get to the real work of cooking, prep. I had some onion, jalapeno, mushrooms, and turkey sausage leftover in the fridge so that’s what I employed here. However the beauty of this dish is your can stuff those peppers with whatever you deem fit. It’s a great way to redeploy leftovers or in my case some ingredients that didn’t quite make it into the last meal. Any who, I gave them all a rough chop running a good sharp blade through them only a couple of times and got a pan ready with a medium heat and some cooking oil. In went the onions, jalapeno, and mushrooms and a little salt to sweat in the pan for a while till they got all soft, maybe 8 minutes. Then I hit the pan with the sausage keeping the heat the same. Y0u’re not really looking to cook the sausage all the way through because once they get stuffed into the poblanos it’s going into the oven to finish off. This low and slow method should take about 15 minutes or so total which times well with the rice. You could if you wanted saute the ingredients at a higher heat for a shorter time period which will change the flavors somewhat.
While the pan and the rice are finishing off you can now under cold water, peel the skin off the poblanos until there is none left. Just use your hands as they’re usually the best tool for the job. Once peeled cut or tear open a slit in the pepper allowing for the stuffin. Now they’re ready for the filling which if you’ve timed everything should be about ready. To put the finishing touches on the filling add chopped garlic, basil, oregano, little more salt, pepper, and a squirt of fresh lemon and let it all cook together for about a minute or when you really start to smell the fragrances.
Each pepper will now get some rice, spoon in your medley from the pan, and top off with a gooey melty cheese (I prefer chihuahua cheese.) Because I had a long weekend of boozing I didn’t really have the energy to top off with a sauce. But really the dish ought to have some sauce added. I would normally go with an enchilada sauce or a simple tomato sauce, depending on the flair. This particular stuffed pepper is sort of hybrid between an Italian style and a Chile Rellenos style so either one would have worked. Usually I make them in a much more mexican style with chicken and chipotle, but I’ll save that for another post. Another good option is a dab of Thai chili sauce, which is what I just had with the left over peppers. With or without sauce put the stuffed peppers into a greased baking dish, cover, and put into the oven for about 25 minutes. You just want the cheese to melt into the pepper and they’re ready to go.
Give this a try and let me know how it turns out!
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