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(6-12 servings)
Ingredients for the stuffing
½ kg minced beef
5 chopped onions
1/3 cup olive oil
2 medium-sized onions, peeled
a bunch of chopped parsley leaves
a bunch of chopped mint leaves
2 tomatoes
1 ½ cups of long Persian rice
a full teaspoon of salt
black pepper, freshly ground
5 spoonfuls tomato paste
Hot or sweet paprika
Instructions
1. Fry the five chopped onions in oil, until golden. Add the minced beef and fry a few minutes. Take off the fire.
2. Finely chop the two other onions along with the parsley (you can use a food-processor) and mix with the mixture of beef and onion.
3. Cut the tomatoes in halves, remove the juice and the seeds. Chop or grate on a grater with large holes and add to the mixture.
4. In a large bowl, wash the rice well, strain and half-cook. Add to the mixture. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add the tomato paste and mix until the mixture is even.
The vegetables to be filled
Pickled Vine Leaves
- Soak and wash the leaves several times to remove the saltiness.
- Place the vine leaves with the shiny side down, put a teaspoon of the stuffing on the part closer to the stem, fold on the sides and roll firmly and tightly.
8 Small Zucchinis
- You can use any kind of zucchinis, but it's important that they are small and very fresh.
- Remove the stem and grate the peel a bit, using a teethed knife.
- Empty the inner part of the zucchini using a small knife.
- After packing the zucchinis with the stuffing, it's a good idea to pierce them carefully with a fork, just once.
4 Purple Onions
- Peel the external part of large onions. Using a sharp knife make one incision along the whole onion, until its center.
- Cook in salted water for abut 15 minutes, cool and then separate the layers of the onion.
- Put a spoonful of the stuffing and press, close the layers of the onion into the shape of a cone and put in a pot.
Covering the bottom of the pot
- The covering layer is essential in order to control the bubbling and prevent the stuffed vegetables from falling apart.
- Usually we use a large, wide Nirosta pot.
- Cover the bottom with leftover vine leaves and with the inner parts we removed from the zucchinis.
- Arrange the stuffed vegetables on the covered bottom, in packed layers, like pieces in a puzzle.
Ingredients for cooking
3 spoonfuls of olive oil
4-5 tomatoes, grated on a grater
1 teaspoon of paprika grated in oil
Salt
2 lemons
- In a large pan or in another pot, heat the oil and fry the tomatoes until the liquids evaporate. Add paprika and 3 cups of water. Salt gently (since the stuffing is salted). Take off the fire.
- Squeeze the lemon juice into the sauce, mix and pour over the stufed vegetables in the pot. Add boiling water so as to cover the stuffed vegetables.
- Cover the pot and bring to a boil over a medium fire. Lower the fire and cook gently for about an hour.
Before serving
2 cups of goat-milk yogurt
About 4 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon coarse salt
A bunch of mint leaves, or dill leaves or rashad leaves (or all of them), chopped
1/3 cup fine olive oil
the juice of half a large lemon
- Mix the yogurt well so it's easy to pour it.
- In a bowl, using a spoon or a similar tool, crush the garlic cloves with the salt until you have a paste. Add the leaves and continue crushing, mixing in the olive oil and the lemon juice.
- After arranging the stuffed vegetables to be served, pour yogurt over them and drip the green sauce on top.
For a vegetarian version of this dish, just leave out the meat, nothing more. The yogurt sauce is only an option, since the dish is excellent without it as well and has its own sauce.
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