Red Pepper Halves Stuffed with Rice and Tomatoes in a Wide Pot

👨‍🍳 Method

For the Meatball mix

1. 1
   Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat.

   ⚙ Pan-fryingStoveFrying pan
2. 2
   Add the onion and fry 7 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onion is soft and translucent and starts to turn golden at the edges. If it browns too fast, lower the heat.

   ⚙ Adding to the hot fat and fryingStove

   💡Add by cooking time: what needs long (onion, carrot, meat) goes in first, and what burns fast (garlic, dry spices) goes in last, only until fragrant.
3. 3
   Add the garlic and fry 1 minute, just until fragrant. Don't let the garlic brown.

   ⚙ Adding to the hot fat and fryingStove

   💡Garlic burns quickly and turns bitter. Add it only after the onion has softened, over medium heat, and add the next ingredient as soon as it smells fragrant.
4. 4
   Mix the fried onion, tomato, parsley, dill, paprika, baharat, rice, salt and black pepper until evenly combined.

To assemble

1. 5
   Halve the peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds and white ribs.

   KnifeCutting board
2. 6
   Fill the peppers with the mixture up to ¾ full: the rice swells as it cooks.

   💡Fill only three-quarters full: the uncooked rice swells inside the vegetable, and a full filling gets pushed out.
3. 7
   Arrange the peppers, now stuffed, in a wide pot.

   Wide, shallow pot
4. 8
   Mix the stock, tomato paste, sugar, lemon juice, salt and olive oil and pour over the peppers.
5. 9
   Heat the olive oil in a wide pot and sauté the chopped caps 0 minutes. Add the tomato paste, stock, sugar, lemon juice and salt and stir until the paste dissolves.

   ⚙ SimmeringStoveLid

   💡A gentle simmer, not a boil: a hard boil dries the food out and clouds it, a slow simmer cooks it evenly.
6. 10
   Let the peppers sit in the covered pot 10 minutes before serving.
7. 11
   Serve hot with tahini on the side.