Delia Smith Turkish Stuffed Peppers Recipe

Leftover lamb, rice, currants and pine nuts fill Delia Smith’s Turkish stuffed peppers, her way of turning cold cooked lamb into a proper supper. The lamb warms with onion, garlic, cinnamon, oregano and a little tinned tomato, then gets folded into just-cooked rice. Packed into whole peppers, they bake upright in the rest of the tomatoes for 45 to 50 minutes, enough for 4.

Her 1983 Complete Cookery Course is a small time capsule here. The pine nuts are marked “if available”, with a note that most health food shops stock them, and the herb is marjoram, which the 1992 edition swaps for dried oregano.

These are a different thing from her Piedmont peppers, which are halved, filled with tomato and anchovy and served as a starter. Here the peppers stay whole, with the tops sliced off, and the spiced rice makes them a main course.

Delia Smith’s Turkish Stuffed Peppers

Recipe by Anne Morgan

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: Main CourseCuisine: TurkishDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

5

minutes

Calories

580

kcal

Sweet-spiced and savoury, with tender lamb, plump currants and pine nuts all through the rice.

Ingredients

• For the peppers:

• long-grain white rice, measured to the 225ml (8fl oz) level in a measuring jug

• boiling water, measured to the 450ml (16fl oz) level

• 4 medium green or red peppers

• olive oil

• 2 medium onions, chopped

• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

• about 350g (12oz) cooked lamb, cut into very small pieces

• 2 tablespoons currants

• 2 dessertspoons pine nuts

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ½ teaspoon dried oregano

• 400g (14oz) tin Italian tomatoes

• 4 teaspoons tomato purée

• salt and freshly milled black pepper

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Directions

• Oven: Set it to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas mark 5.
• Rice: Warm a little oil in a saucepan and stir in the rice until every grain is coated. Add the boiling water and a pinch of salt, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the water has gone.
• Filling: Meanwhile, soften the onions and garlic in a little more oil for a couple of minutes. Add the lamb, currants and pine nuts, season well, then stir in the cinnamon, oregano, 2 of the tinned tomatoes and a tablespoon of their juice. Leave it on the lowest heat to bubble gently.
• Peppers: Slice the stalk end off each pepper, pull out the core and seeds and rinse them under the cold tap. Stand them upright in a small casserole, close enough together that they can’t tip over.
• Fill: Stir the cooked rice into the lamb and check the seasoning. Pack the mixture firmly into the peppers, spoon any extra around their bases, put a teaspoon of tomato purée on each and pour the rest of the tomatoes around them.
• Bake: Cover and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a skewer slides easily into the peppers.

Notes

• Cooked lamb should go into the fridge within 2 hours of the roast and be used within 2 days. That's the usual UK food-safety guidance, not hers. The filling must be piping hot by the time the peppers come out.
• Measuring the rice by volume in a jug, as she does, keeps the ratio at one part rice to two parts water.

FAQs

Can I use beef instead of lamb?

Yes, cooked beef works, though she thinks it isn’t quite as good as lamb. Her 1983 edition offered lamb or beef equally, and it was the 1992 edition that came down on the side of the lamb.

What if I have no leftover lamb?

Use lamb mince, which is my own swap. Brown 350g of lamb mince well in a frying pan, spoon off the fat, then carry on with the onions and spices as the card says.

Make sure the mince is cooked through before it goes into the peppers.

Should I use green or red peppers?

Either, as she leaves the choice to you. Red ones turn sweeter and softer in the oven, and green ones keep a sharper, slightly bitter edge that I think suits the sweet spices.

Pick peppers with flat bottoms so they stand up in the casserole.

What’s her vegetarian version?

Her stuffed yellow peppers with pilau rice, currants and toasted pine nuts, in her Vegetarian Collection (2002), is close in spirit. The yellow peppers are halved and roasted for 50 to 60 minutes, then filled with a basmati pilau cooked in vegetable stock with cinnamon and finished with mint.

It serves 6, and she likes that the peppers can be roasted well ahead and simply warmed through before the rice goes in.

Can I fill them the day before?

Yes. I’d fill them, cover and chill them, then bake from cold for about 10 minutes longer, checking the centre is piping hot. That’s my own timing.