LESSON 2 - Yemistas (this just mean "stuffed with" and I didn't chose to tell ya what with!)
For tonight's dinner, I used 2 green bell and 2 red bell peppers and some HUGE cabbage leaves. This is not in any directions I got from Greek friends...but I prefer to seed, decapitate and put in a SUPER HOT oven for 15-20 minutes to blacken the skin. This softens the peppers and makes them SO SWEET!
Here's how they look after their baking time.
Because I had already made the filling for my Bierox (recipe WILL follow - I promise), this was super easy. But YOU can fill them up with anything your family will eat! My filling was 1 kilo of minced beef (ground beef to you American types), 1 HUGE onion chopped, 1 small head of cabbage shredded. Brown the mince, add the onion and cabbage, TONS of garlic salt (or powder) and a lot of salt and pepper. Keep tasting to determine if there is enough as the cabbage takes up a lot of salt. I also added about 3 c. of leftover rice and some cayenne pepper - we like zippy stuff ya know. Stir together and let cool for filling.
I had a HUGE head of cabbage so I tore off a few leaves and steamed them a little so they would roll up. If you're going to make cabbbage yemistas and not pepper ones, you have to slice off the bony part at the base of the cabbage leaf - easy to do AFTER it is steamed.
My leaves were NOT perfect - but it was still easy to roll them up around the filling.
Place all back into the baking dish. If your peppers won't stand up right, slice off a VERY thin piece from the bottom. Fill them, plop on the "hat" and drizzle with olive oil. 
I used a small box of pureed tomatoes. In the US, your stuff comes in tins/cans - here we have recyclable PAPER! I just poured it over all the yemistas and ...we like Greek herbs so mine are liberally sprinkled with mountain oregano and mint! 
For tonight's dinner, I used 2 green bell and 2 red bell peppers and some HUGE cabbage leaves. This is not in any directions I got from Greek friends...but I prefer to seed, decapitate and put in a SUPER HOT oven for 15-20 minutes to blacken the skin. This softens the peppers and makes them SO SWEET!
Here's how they look after their baking time.
Because I had already made the filling for my Bierox (recipe WILL follow - I promise), this was super easy. But YOU can fill them up with anything your family will eat! My filling was 1 kilo of minced beef (ground beef to you American types), 1 HUGE onion chopped, 1 small head of cabbage shredded. Brown the mince, add the onion and cabbage, TONS of garlic salt (or powder) and a lot of salt and pepper. Keep tasting to determine if there is enough as the cabbage takes up a lot of salt. I also added about 3 c. of leftover rice and some cayenne pepper - we like zippy stuff ya know. Stir together and let cool for filling.
I had a HUGE head of cabbage so I tore off a few leaves and steamed them a little so they would roll up. If you're going to make cabbbage yemistas and not pepper ones, you have to slice off the bony part at the base of the cabbage leaf - easy to do AFTER it is steamed.My leaves were NOT perfect - but it was still easy to roll them up around the filling.
Place all back into the baking dish. If your peppers won't stand up right, slice off a VERY thin piece from the bottom. Fill them, plop on the "hat" and drizzle with olive oil. I used a small box of pureed tomatoes. In the US, your stuff comes in tins/cans - here we have recyclable PAPER! I just poured it over all the yemistas and ...we like Greek herbs so mine are liberally sprinkled with mountain oregano and mint! 
No comments:
Post a Comment