Stuffed Vegetables: Summer Delights & Winter Joys
Some dishes and preparation techniques become intimately associated with particular cuisines: For example, people associate thinly sliced pickled cabbage (sauerkraut) with Germany, and indeed the sections of Italy where it is popular, the Alto Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia, are either ethnically German or were long under Austrian rule. Likewise, a disk of dough topped with tomatoes and cheese and popped into the oven (pizza) brings Naples to mind.
Other dishes and techniques are more universal: If you mix flour and water to obtain a dough, shaped the dough into strands or sheets, and either cook them or dry them for later use, you have pasta, which has developed independently in many places, including Italy and China. Stuffed vegetables fall into this latter category: The concept is quite obvious, and all one need is to have vegetables sufficiently large to hollow out, and a stuffing to fill them with. Though Italians make them year round, they are especially popular in the summer moths, in large part because many stuffed vegetables are as good cool or lightly chilled as they are hot.
What to stuff? What you like. The one thing you do have to keep in mind when you make them is that the stuffing should not be overly compact lest the vegetables come out weighty rather than refreshing. In other words, tamp the stuffing down gently, and if you discover you have more stuffing than vegetables, stuff a different vegetable or use the leftover stuffing to make a croquette.
Summer
Recipes:
Eggplant, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes, and
Zucchini
Winter Recipes:
Artichokes, Onions,
Cabbages and More
A presto,
Kyle
Phillips
Got more sites / recipes to suggest? Let me know.
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