I’m a child of the eighties – no one can stop me from stuffing peppers. These make for a beautiful starter alongside simply dressed leaves, and you can, if you want, stuff the peppers and refrigerate them, then roast them when you want to eat them.
Ingredients
- 4 large Romano peppers
- 2 tablespoons rapeseed oil
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed
- 1 brown onion, finely diced
- 1 green finger chilli, very finely chopped
- 2 cm ginger, peeled and grated
- 225 g hard paneer, grated
- 1 large ripe tomato, finely chopped
- 0.33 teaspoon salt
- 0.33 teaspoon chilli powder
- 20 g fresh coriander, chopped
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and line an oven tray with baking paper or foil.
- Slice open the top of a pepper, 1 cm below the stem, but don’t slice it off – keep it intact. Then slice down the middle of the pepper. Open it up with your hands, gently pull out the seeds and discard. Repeat with the rest of the peppers.
- Put a frying pan on a medium heat. When hot, add the oil and the crushed cumin seeds and stir-fry for 30 seconds, then add the onion. Fry for around 8 minutes, until soft, then add the green chilli and ginger and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the paneer and tomato, cook for a further 5 minutes, or until soft, then add the salt, chilli powder and coriander. Mix well, take off the heat and allow to cool.
- Divide the mixture into four and stuff each pepper using a spoon or clean fingers. Press the pepper closed, lay on the oven tray, then bake for 20 minutes, or until the peppers are soft and slightly charred in places.
