How To Make Middle Eastern Stuffed Vegetables

Video: Filled with warm rice and unexpected spices, they’re perfect for a cool autumn night—as a side dish or vegetarian entree

By Joan Nathan for Tablet Magazine
Like many Americans, I grew up thinking of stuffed vegetables as a dish of hollowed-out peppers filled with a heavy mixture of rice, meat, and Italian tomato sauce. However, in the Middle East, stuffed vegetables are an entirely different animal. Imagine not just peppers, but also carrots, onions, tomatoes, beets, zucchinis, and potatoes, filled with a warm rice and vegetable filling infused with startling combinations of spices. These vegetables, hollowed out with an apple corer (or long vegetable corer) and stuffed with rice and the insides of the vegetables, are spiced with cinnamon, allspice, cumin, cardamom, and ginger, depending on the cook’s origin. Though this slightly tart dish infused with a hint of tomato and lots of lemon is not always beautiful to look at, it is a classic homemade comfort food of the region, stacked through the centuries in clay pots and slowly, slowly cooked in the oven.

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