Stuffed Bell Peppers on Marinara Sauce

Where do you get your inspirations for cooking? This is the question frequently asked from newly made friends. When I started to cook, I always have this mentality from my parents that we should buy ingredients when it is only on special. It helps narrowing down my decision of which dish that I should create.  SOSCuisine is the ultimate reference website for Canadians to seek out deals of the week of all the supermarkets in your hometown. Pretty convenient, isn't it?

It does happen that I lack of inspirations especially if I have to respect the cooking theme. Just for a heads-up, the cooking theme for tonight will be any dish that are "stacked", "skewed" or "layered" like crostinis, brochettes, lasagnas and mille-feuille. I usually end up going through my pile of cookbooks or food blogs for inspirations. I usually tweak the recipe according to what's available in my fridge and my pantry.

Nothing beats the good old taste of home cooked food especially for this stuffed bell peppers, a classic North American dish. It is essentially meatloaf inside a bell pepper. These bell peppers are usually baked with a coating of olive oil or a pool of sauce. I decided that my sauce should be the classic Italian American marinara sauce.

Serves 6
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Baking Time: about 60 mins, depending on the size of the bell peppers
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

6 bell peppers, any colour

Marinara Sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes, liquid drained
1 can (14 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
1 garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
Salt and pepper

Stuffing
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp Worchestshire sauce
1 1/2 lb ground meat (I use 1/2 ground beef and 1/2 ground pork)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cup cooked rice
Salt and Pepper
Mozzarella cheese

Procedure

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat.

2. Meanwhile, cut the tops off the bell peppers. Chop edible part of tops and set aside. Remove seeds in cold water. Submerge bell peppers in boiling water and cook for 5 mins until the flesh has slightly softened. Drain peppers and set aside to cool.

3. Preheat oven to 350F.

4. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Sauté bell peppers from tops, onion, celery for about 5 mins, until onions are translucent.

5. Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 mins.

6. Meanwhile, in another bowl, combine egg, Worcestershire sauce, ground meat and Parmesan. Mix in cooked rice and 1 1/2 cup of the marinara sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Stuff peppers with meat mixture and place in a 13'' x 9'' baking pan. Create a 1/2-inch hole in the middle of the stuffing to ensure even cooking. Pour the remaining tomato mixture over the stuffed peppers.

8. Bake for 60 mins. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese on top of the stuffed peppers before bell peppers are done. Bake until cheese has melted. Serve.

Mediterranean Risotto

A tip to be creative in cooking is to use what you already have in your fridge and food storage and make a dish out of it. For this dish, I had some sun-dried tomatoes, olives, cremini mushroom, risotto rice and vegetable stock. Combine all together gives a marvelous multi-flavour dish. I love these kind of dish where each bite taste different from the previous one. I have to admit that it is not purely a mediterranian dish as I used cremini mushrooms.

Serves 6

Preparation Time : 10 mins

Cooking Time : 30 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

8-12 cremini mushrooms, sliced

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloved of garlic, minced

2 cups Arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

6 cups vegetable stock

8 sundried tomatoes in oil, drained and sliced

12-16 black/green olives, sliced

Procedure

1. In a large skillet, heat oil and melt butter over medium-high heat. Cook onion until transparent and mushrooms until soft, about 5 mins. Remove from skillet.

2. Add rice to skillet. Leave for 3-4 mins until almost translucent. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 min.

3. Add white wine and a ladle of vegetable stock. Let the rice adsorbed most of the liquid before adding more liquid, stir constantly. Continue in this manner until it gives a creamy consistency. After 3 ladles, stir in cooked mushrooms and onions.

4. Once it is almost done, stir in sundried tomatoes and olives. Finish cooking the rice. For a richer taste, add butter or olive oil. Serve.

Wat Dan Har Fan - Rice with Shrimp Egg Sauce

This dish was made 2 weeks ago and I was struggling to find the correct English name for this dish, but I knew the Chinese name for it. It is sometimes hard to find the right terminology. My Taiwanese friend called it "Asian Risotto" and a few food bloggers called it "Jade Rice". I can't figure out why these names should be valid as it doesn't have the texture of a risotto and "jade" might be just a fancy name for such a great dish. Finally, a recent post from Soup Belly made a version of our dish and the name "Egg Sauce" seems to be the most appropriate. My version contains shrimps, tomatoes with wine reduction.

Serves 4
Preparation Time : 10 mins
Cooking Time : 20 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb shrimp, deveined, mix with a dash of rice wine
1/2 small onion, diced
2 garlic, minced
1 small ginger, fine julienned
1 large tomato, skinned and cubed
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup rice wine or white wine
1 tsp cornstarch

Procedure

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook onion until transparent. Add in garlic and ginger until fragrant.

2. Add tomatoes and wine. Boil and simmer for 15 mins.

3. Add in shrimp and cook for 3-5 mins until it starts turning orange. Season with salt.

4. Make slurry with cornstarch and 1 tbsp water then pour it onto skillet.

5. Turn heat to medium. Once boil, turn off and stir in egg until cooked, about 30 seconds.

6. Pour sauce over rice. Serve.

Cooking Technique : Skinning Tomatoes

For newbies, here is an interesting way to remove the skin of a tomato.

First, start boiling water over medium heat and gently drop the tomato.

In less than a minute, the skin starts to detach. Remove with a slotted spoon and remove skin by hand.

Artichoke Risotto with Pesto

Those of you who tasted risotto know how simple is to make one and any flavour can be put on it. So, I showed my good friend Tony how to make one. In the past, I wrote two risotto recipes : Blue Cheese Risotto with Prosciutto and Cremini Mushroom Risotto. This time, I wanted to try artichokes since it is an ingredient I never used before and it seems it goes well with pesto. Unfortunately, fresh basil is unavailable this season so I went for store-bought pesto.

Serves 6
Preparation Time : 5 mins
Cooking Time : 30 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

6-7 cups vegetable stock
1 canned artichokes, quartered
1 large onion, cubed
3 garlic, minced
2 cups Arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine (to taste)
170g pesto
lemon juice to taste (optional)
parmesan (optional)

Procedure

1. Bring broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil and melt butter over medium-high heat. Cook onions until transparent, about 5 mins. Add artichokes and cook until golden brown, about 3-4 mins. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 min.

3. Add rice to skillet. Leave for 3-4 mins until almost translucent.

4. Add white wine and a ladle of broth. Let the rice adsorbed most of the liquid before adding more liquid, stir constantly.

5. Continue in this manner until it gives a creamy consistency but still retains a bite. If stock runs out, add water. For a richer taste, add butter when it becomes creamy.

6. Remove from heat. Stir in pesto and lemon juice. Add parmesan before serving.

Seafood Paella

Paella... this is the first time that I heard and ate paella made by my Taiwanese friend. I'm not sure how paella should really taste like, but this paella tasted so good that I cannot stop eating.

Serves 6

Preparation Time : 30 mins

Cooking Time : 1 hour
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, chopped
2 sausages, cut into pieces
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh thyme
4 ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 1/2 cups short-grain white rice

pinch saffron threads soaked in 2 cups water

5 cups chicken or fish stock

1 kg mussels
1 lb white fish fillets

10 oz. uncooked prawns, deveined

8 oz. scallops
3 squid tubes
1 tbsp fresh parsley

Procedure

1. Cut fish into 1-inch pieces and squid into 1/2-inch tubes.

2. On large paella pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions, sausages and thyme, cook until onions are transparent, about 5 mins. Add garlic and cook until fragrant.

3. Add tomatoes and stir for about 5 mins.

4. Add rice and cook, stirring until translucent, about 4 mins. Stir in saffron mixture and stock, and bring to simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until the rice has absorbed almost all of the liquid.

5. Add mussels, cover and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add in fish, prawns and scallops and cook for 2-3 mins. Stir in squid and parsley and cook until seafood is cooked and mussels open.

Hot Pot - Chinese Fondue

A few weeks ago, my Taiwanese friend thought of organizing a hot pot, a great economical idea. The idea here is that everyone bring whatever leftover they have in their fridge and share it with others. The concept of hot pot is very simple. A pot of simmering water or broth is found at the middle of the table. Basically, you place a few uncooked ingredients in a wired or slotted spoon and cook in the pot. Any ingredients can be put in a hot pot as long they do not take too long (more than 5 mins) to cook.

That day, we brought 3 new students to our cooking gather up. Two exchange students and my neighbour lab physicist. We were in total 10 people for the hot pot, it is probably the largest group we ever had since the first organization of the collective cooking since last October... hmmm...I just realize while writing this post that it has been now a year of collective cooking organization. Wow, what an accomplishment!

Okay, back to the fondue, the cooked ingredients are usually eaten with a dipping sauce. There are two popular dipping sauce that my family uses everytime we have a hot pot : ginger sauce and oyster-soy sauce.
For the oyster-soy sauce, mix 1:1 oyster sauce : soy sauce. Serve on ramekin or dipping bowls for each person.

Anyone can organize a hot pot at their home, all you need is an electrical pot or portable stove. Add water with herbs or broth in the pot, boil and then bring it to a simmer. The liquid can start spicy, peppery, salty, barbecuey or any combination of flavour, so get your guests entertain.

As you can in all the pictures here, there were lots and lots of food and we did not managed to finish them all. Here is a list of what food people brought :

- Cuttlefish, fish, prawn, squid, vegetable, beef balls

- Fried and unfried Tofu

- Thin slices of pork, beef and lamb

- Lots of vegetable : nappa, lettuce, broccoli

- Precooked dumplings

- Shrimps, scallops and clams

- Rice noodle

The special part of the event is at the end when everyone is full. The liquid becomes a soup, you can taste all the food that were dipped since the beginning of the evening. All in all, we had a great time. I hope this post will help you readers to organize chinese fondue night.

Cremini Mushroom Risotto

For the vegetarian theme, I made risotto. It is the first time I made one by myself. All it requires is to pour a scoop of liquid to rice, let it adsorbed and redo the same routine. This is a straightforward process and takes only thirty minutes of your time to have a great meal. A perfect risotto is when you see all the rice grains and you shouldn't taste the rice crunchiness exactly like pasta.

Serves 6
Preparation Time : 5 mins
Cooking Time : 25 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

7 cups vegetable broth
12 cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 medium red onion, cubed
2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine (or more to taste)
1 cup grated Parmesan (optional)

Procedure

1. Bring broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Cook cremini mushroom and stir occasionally until golden, about 4 mins. Set aside.

3. Melt butter in the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until transparent, about 5 mins.

4. Add rice to onion. Stir until coated. Leave for about 3-4 mins until almost translucent.

5. Add white wine and a ladle of broth. Let the rice adsorbed most of the liquid before adding more liquid, stir constantly. Continue in this manner until it gives a creamy consistency but still retains a bite. After 4 ladles, add the cremini mushrooms. If stock runs out, add water.

6. For a rich taste, add butter or olive oil when it becomes creamy. Add parmesan before serving.

Blue Cheese Risotto with Prosciutto

Risotto is the first dish that my Brazilian friend knows how to cook when she came to Montreal. This is excellent because I love risotto, but never had a chance to make one yet. This dish is straightforward. If she knows how to do it, you can do it also. Weirdly, she puts blue cheese in it. I'm not a big fan of strong cheese, but this makes the risotto very delicious. You can always substitute blue cheese for parmesan for a softer taste. Also, prosciutto can be cooked at the beginning with the onions for crispness or for uncooked prosciutto, add at the end along with the blue cheese.

Serves 4
Preparation Time : 10 mins
Cooking Time : 30 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups arborio rice or carnaroli
3-4 cups beef or vegetable stock
1 medium onion, chopped
200g blue cheese or 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
8 strips of prosciutto, cut into small pieces

Procedure

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the stock to a simmer.

2. Meanwhile, in a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Cook onions (and prosciutto) until golden, about 5 mins. Add rice and stir for 2 mins.

3. Gradually add a ladleful of simmering stock and stir constantly until it is absorbed before adding more. Continue in this manner, until the rice is tender and has a creamy consistency but still retains a bite. It takes about 25 mins. If stock has run out, add water.

4. Turn off and remove from the heat. Stir in the cheese (and prosciutto) and serve immediately.

White Mexican Rice

I don't really know what this dish actually called. So, I just keep it sweet and simple. Here, I present a way that Mexican cooks their rice with flavours added.

Serves 6
Preparation Time : 5 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 tbsp oil
2 cups white long-grain rice
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, cubed
2 tbsp salt

Preparation

1. Heat frying pan over high heat, add oil and garlic, cook until brown not burnt.

2. Add onion, cook until transparent.

3. Add uncooked rice and stir constantly until colour change not burnt.

4. Transfer rice to a rice cooker. Putting your hand on the surface of the rice, pour enough warm water until it covers your hand. Let it cook until ready.