Dolma Biber - Stuffed Peppers

I've made Dolma Biber or Stuffed Peppers a few times, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't! I think the one I made in my mom's claypot tasted the best. I know now that the best result comes from the type of pot.

I remember when I was younger my mom did make stuffed peppers, but she made it in the oven by stuffing uncooked rice in the peppers. I found out that the Turkish way is sort of to fry the rice first, stuff them in the peppers, and then let the bell peppers cook in water. (Oh but if you check YouTube comments, people are fighting about where stuffed peppers come from - just like how Malaysians fight with Indonesians/Singaporeans and vice versa about the origins of dishes - let's not go there :p)

Well the name stuffed pepper is quite misleading, because we can also make stuffed eggplant, stuffed zucchini, and stuffed red peppers. I personally prefer stuffed zucchini.

so first you gotta empty out the insides of the peppers and the zucchini and eggplant like so

as I've mentioned earlier, the rice is fried for a bit - (uncooked) rice fried with olive oil, some chopped onions, tomato paste, minced meat, cumin powder, red chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

Then you stuff the rice in the pepper. Okay actually this picture is from the first time I made the stuffed peppers, and I made the vegetarian version - it similar except that there is no meat, and there are raisins and pine nuts

excuse the messiness

you then 'close' the peppers with tomatoes 

pour water, add some more tomato paste and salt. close the cover and let it cook for about 45 minutes

Voila! Afiyet Olsun :)