Stuffed Peppers (Ardei Umpluti)

People always ask me what are some of the ethnic Romanian dishes. Well I don't know how Romanian stuffed peppers are, but it's one of the dishes I grew up eating and are very popular in Romania.  Now, of course there are many different variations of stuffed peppers.  You can practically stuff them with anything, if you're vegetarian you can just stuff them with rice, but for us meat lovers we usually stuff them with ground pork and sometimes we mix ground pork with ground beef.  Again just like with cabbage rolls and meatballs, they seem to taste better with pork, maybe because pork is fatter so when you cook the stuffed peppers they don't come out dry and are nice and juicy. As for what type of pepper you can use bell peppers work just fine, but normally they are done with Hungarian yellow peppers which are not as thick as the bell peppers.  Here's what you'll need:

• 2 lbs ground pork
• about 5 to 10 peppers, depends on the size of the peppers
• 1/2 cup long grain rice
• 2 onions finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• parsley finely chopped
• dill finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste and other spices you may prefer
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 cups of water

Clean out the insides of the peppers and wash thoroughly.  Saute the onion until tender.  To the ground meat add the rice, the egg, parsley, dill, salt and pepper and mix and mix until it's all mixed well. Now you can stuff really well each pepper and arrange them nicely in a big pot.  Now it's time to make the sauce, you can saute another onion for the sauce if you wish, otherwise just mix the tomato paste with the water and the sour cream and pour over the peppers.  Add more water if needed, it should cover the peppers. Add the bay leaves. Bake at 375 degrees for  2 to 3 hours.  You can also cook these on the stove top, but I find they just taste better baked.  Serve these with a bit of sour cream on top.  Delicious! Enjoy!

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Live at Slane Castle