Creole Stuffed Peppers

New Orleans stuffed bell peppers: the holy trinity cooked down with shrimp and ham, bound with rice, packed back into the pepper shells and baked under buttered crumbs

Origin: United States

From the journey of Bell Pepper.

Stuffed bell peppers are a fixture of the New Orleans home table, and they show the Creole kitchen doing what it does best: taking a European form and rebuilding it with local ingredients and a Caribbean logic. The form is the Mediterranean stuffed vegetable, which reached Louisiana with French and Spanish settlers. The logic is the holy trinity, that Creole and Cajun adaptation of the French mirepoix in which the carrot is replaced by the green bell pepper, so that onion, celery, and pepper diced and softened in fat begin nearly every dish in the repertoire. Here the trinity is cooked down with garlic and tomato, enriched with shrimp from the lake and diced ham, seasoned with thyme, bay, and cayenne, and bound with rice; the mixture is packed back into the halved pepper shells and baked under a lid of buttered breadcrumbs until the tops are crisp and the shells are tender. Green peppers are used deliberately rather than sweeter red ones, for their faint bitterness and grassy edge stand up to the richness of the filling. It is thrifty, generous cooking of exactly the sort that made New Orleans food what it is, and versions vary from household to household according to what the cook has.

Ingredients

Peppers

  • 6 whole green bell peppers, halved lengthways and deseeded

Filling

  • 1 whole onion, finely diced
  • 2 sticks celery, finely diced
  • 1 whole green bell pepper, finely diced (from the trimmings or an extra)
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 60 g butter
  • 300 g raw prawns, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 150 g cooked ham or andouille sausage, diced
  • 300 g cooked long-grain rice
  • 200 g chopped tomatoes
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 whole bay leaves
  • 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1 to taste salt and black pepper

Topping

  • 80 g dried breadcrumbs
  • 30 g butter, melted

Method

  1. Blanch the pepper halves in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, then drain them cut-side down. Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).
  2. Melt the 60 g butter in a wide pan and cook the onion, celery, and diced pepper (the holy trinity) over a medium-low heat for 12 to 15 minutes, until soft and sweet. Add the garlic, thyme, bay, cayenne, and paprika and cook for a further minute.
  3. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes until thickened, then stir in the prawns and ham and cook for 2 minutes more, just until the prawns turn pink.
  4. Fold in the cooked rice, remove the bay leaves, and season assertively with salt, black pepper, and more cayenne. Taste and correct.
  5. Pack the filling generously into the pepper halves and set them in a baking dish. Toss the breadcrumbs with the melted butter and scatter over the tops. Bake for 30 minutes, until the peppers are tender and the crumbs deep golden.

Notes

The filling is endlessly adaptable and traditionally used up whatever the household had: crab, crawfish tails, leftover roast, or simply more rice and vegetables for a meatless version. Some cooks bind the mixture with an egg for a firmer slice. Stuffed peppers are usually served as they are, with hot sauce at the table, or with a simple green salad; a spoonful of Creole tomato sauce underneath makes them more substantial. They reheat well and are frequently made a day ahead.

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