Stuffed Peppers
Stuffed peppers are another classic of Viennese monarchy cuisine. Peppers are an integral part of Hungarian cuisine and are also part of everyday cuisine in Romania and the Balkans.
Peppers are stuffed with all sorts of ingredients all over the world today. There are no limits to your creativity here. Here we present a basic variant that is common in Vienna. A few questions arise:
Important Questions
Rice or not?
Definitely yes in Vienna. However, with moderation, no more than 30% cooked rice in relation to meat.
Tomatosauce?
Unimaginable without tomato sauce, but that’s not the case everywhere. The Greek “Piperies Gemistes” or the French “poivrons farcis” are served without.
Traditionally in Vienna, a roux is made and the tomatoes are then processed into a creamy sauce. Tomato paste is optional, the shortcut is already strained tomatoes.
Mixed or beef only minced meat?
The Viennese variant prefers mixed minced meat.
Ingredients
4 servings
– 4 pcs. large peppers (or 8 smaller ones)
stuffing
– 500 g minced meat, mixed
– 150 g of boiled or steamed rice
– 1 medium onion chopped (150 g)
– 1 bunch marjoram or 1 teaspoon dried and rubbed
salt, oil/fat
Tomato sauce
– 1 kg of tomatoes
– 40 grams of flour
– ½ liter of water or a mild beef broth
– 30 grams of butter
Salt, sugar to taste
Refining
In terms of spices, marjoram is the main ingredient. 1 teaspoon chopped parsley or thyme go very well with it. You can also add stale white bread to the meat filling – as with minced patties – this binds the filling together. The same goes for adding an egg to the meat mixture.
Garlic goes very well with minced meat, but is not well tolerated by everyone.
Incidentally, a spoonful of crème fraiche on the peppers when they come out of the oven tastes delicious.
CULINAMUS
For our Culinamus stuffed peppers we use the basic recipe as described. If it has to be quick, we cut the tomato sauce short and use tomato passata.
Preparation
20 minutes
– Cut the onions into small pieces, steam until soft and leave to cool.
– Boil/ steam the rice and let it cool down.
– Cut and prepare spices.
– Wash the peppers, cut off the top and remove the seeds.
– Blanch tomatoes and cut into small cubes
– Provide flour, butter and soup
– Grease baking pan –
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees top and bottom heat
Cooking
20 minutes and 40 minutes in the oven
We start with the tomato sauce.
– Heat the butter in a saucepan and make a roux with the flour. Stir continuously for 2-3 minutes to create a light brown paste. Cooking longer will take out the floury flavor, but if the seasoning gets too dark it will become bitter and unusable.
– Next comes the sliced tomatoes and the soup. Reduce and season with salt and sugar. First uncover to reduce the liquid, then cover and cook. In total about 20 minutes. If you want a smooth sauce, you can use a hand blender to puree the sauce at the end.
– For the filling, mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.
– Place the peppers in the greased baking pan and fill with the mixture. Seal with the paprika lid.
– Add the tomato sauce to the peppers.
– Steam in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.
and next?
Stuffed peppers with tomato sauce don’t actually need a side dish. If you would like boiled potatoes go well with it, but as I said, it doesn’t have to be.
We like to drink a slightly richer white wine, for example a Pinot Blanc from Fassold in Straden.
On the beer side, we would also prefer a slightly stronger one. The Mohren IPA is almost inevitable.
CULINAMUS