Aromatic Stuffed Peppers in Tomato Sauce.

It's a staple in our household, takes a little effort to prepare, but once all the ingredients are put together, there is nothing else to do , but to let it cook , nice and slow. In this case I use lamb and beef mince meat, of course any meat could be used if desired. My advice is to serve 2 peppers on their own, or one pepper and some mash potato. Any leftovers are freezable, raw or cooked. Important thing to remember, that peppers vary greatly in size, I normally use basic medium sized ones, if using different size adjust the volume of the meat filling. 

8 peppers of different colors

250 gr minced beef

750 gr minced lamb

1 egg

50 ml of milk

a pinch of salt

a pinch of paprika

a pinch of black pepper

1 red chilli

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

fresh parsley , chopped

fresh rosemary, chopped

a small green cabbage chopped

1/2 cup basmati rice

For the sauce:

2 tins of chopped tomatoes in tomato juice

3 tbsp of tomato puree

a splash of olive oil

4 bay leaves

pinch of salt

pinch of sugar

Set aside cabbage and rice until later, put all the rest of the ingredients together in a food processor or a big mixing bowl and mix well.

Add the rice and cabbage.

Mix the filling well. Prepare the peppers, cut the tops off but don't throw them away, clean out the seeds.Fill the peppers with the meat filling and put them in the pot, nice and snug, so they all are standing up.

Pop the pepper tops back on, mix all the tomato sauce ingredients together and pour over the peppers, place the bay leaves between the peppers. It might look as there is not enough sauce, do not worry, during cooking more juices will be released.

Two ways to cook: in the oven, gas mark 4/180C for a couple of hours.

On the hob, the lowest heat possible, also for a couple of hours.

Make it the day before or in the morning , the flavour just gets better!