Stuffed paprika / töltött paprika/
Paprika is so basic for us Hungarians, that we cannot live without it, the spice of Hungarian dishes. When we say paprika we mean all different sized and shaped of fresh paprika but also the ground spice either it is hot or sweet.
Here is a very popular summer recipe which uses the fresh peppers as well such as the paprikapowder.
Wash the paprika / I always use small ones, mixed-colored, not that they taste better but they look nicer. You can get them actually not only on the market, but any supermarket, called as lecsopaprika. Cut the top part with the stems and put aside. Hollow the peppers, clean off the seeds. I had 10 small ones, good for 3 persons as main course, or for 5 as an appetizer.
Steps
1
Prepare the filling
Ingredients
250 g of finely ground meat /lean pork or poultry/
2 tbsp rice /can be omitted
1 egg
1 small or half of a big onion
fresh marjoram, oregano and 1 tsp Hungarian ground red paprika
salt, pepper
10 small pepper /yellow, green, red/ 250 g of finely ground meat /lean pork or poultry/ 2 tbsp rice /can be omitted/ 1 egg 1 small or half of a big onion /better to have Hungarian red ones, called vöröshagyma/ fresh marjoram, oregano and 1 tsp Hungaria
Preparation
For the filling place the ground meat into a bowl. Heat a pan with little oil, and sauté the finely chopped onion. Put one egg in the meat, then the onion, some rice and spice it with salt, pepper and the fresh spices. Mix it well to get a nice texture, and fill the peppers.
P
2
Filling the peppers and preparing the tomato sauce
Ingredients
2-3 fresh tomato
400 ml good quality tomato sauce
50 ml milk
1 tsp sugar /compensate the acidity of tomato/
Fill the peppers and place them into a pan with a lid and put into oven (190ºC) and cook it for half an hour. This is enough for our small peppers to be soft, therefore remove the peppers. For the sauce use the remaining liquid, and pour the tomato sauce or some fresh tomatoes, spice it,and put it back to the oven for 20 minutes. When the sauce is thick enough, put back the peppers and heat them another 5 minutes. Et voila! It is ready. This way of making stuffed peppers is halfway Mediterranean, as we baked it in the oven. We can still serve it with Hungarian sour cream.
