I was at my cousin's place this weekend and we experimented with a recipe that looked interesting in some cook book she had. It was a dish called sham-savera. Hope to try out that one some day and write about it. But for now, I brought it up because I loved the spinach and paneer balls in that dish. So, I wanted to play around with those same flavors but did not want to repeat that recipe so soon.
That's how this recipe was born. I have used the paneer and spinach base, then went on to add some potato flakes and sautéed onions (necessity being the mother of invention - I had very little paneer on hand and just a small bunch of spinach, so to increase the quantity, went ahead and added the potato flakes and onions!). Now, the problem is, this was a stuffing, I couldn't possibly serve it as a side dish. It needed something else. Some rummaging in the refrigerator produced three capsicums! Lo and behold - stuffed capsicum for dinner it was!
When I make this next, will probably use small capsicums for stuffing. Had to make do with these giant sized ones that I had in the refrigerator and ofcourse I was too lazy to go down to the grocery store to just pick up miniature ones!
Preparation & Cooking: 30 minutes Serves: 3-4
Ingredients:
Capsicums/Bell Pepper - 3, top removed, cored and seeded (if using small ones, you will need 5-6)
Oil - 3 tablespoons
For the stuffing:
Onion - 1 small, chopped fine
Spinach - one small bunch, chopped
Green chillies - 2, chopped fine
Ginger - 2 teaspoons, minced
Paneer/Cottage Cheese - 1 cup
Instant Potato Flakes - ¼ cup
Pepper - 1 teaspoon, fresh cracked
Salt - to taste
Method:
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius).
- Saute the onions, with a little salt, in 2 teaspoons oil, till they turn translucent. Set them aside.
- Microwave the spinach, paneer, ginger, green chillies, potato flakes and salt for 4-5 minutes, stirring once in between.
- Add in the sautéed onions and freshly cracked pepper and mix well.
- Stuff the bell peppers/capsicums with this stuffing and fry in the remaining oil.
- Cover and cook for a couple of minutes, then turn the capsicums around and continue cooking covered so all sides get browned uniformly. This should take about 8-10 minutes in all.
- Pop them in the oven and bake them for 8-10 minutes till the top of the stuffing begins to brown.
Made this for lunch today & it was awesome! My kid doesn't like capsicum so I used the filling to make paratha for him & he loved it :). Instead of frying it in oil, i loosely covered the filled capsicums in foil and baked it in the oven for 20 - 25 mts.Next time I would add some masala in the stuffing to take it to the next level. Another awesome recipe to add to my list. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks Meera, glad to know you liked it. Using it as a stuffing for paratha is a wonderful idea - will give it a try too!
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