More Fun with Stuffed Vegetables

After yesterday's success with the stuffed tomatoes, I wanted to try more stuffed vegetable recipes, and remembered a few that I had seen in Eugenia Bone's At Mesa's Edge.

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in a bookstore where we were given access to advanced reading copies of future releases. One day, when browsing through the free-ARC pile, I came across Ms. Bone's memoir/cookbook, and took it home.

Eugenia Bone is a native New Yorker and food writer. Her husband, on a fishing trip to Colorado, made a decision to purchase a 45-acre ranch there, and so she dutifully packed up the kids and moved to her new home in Colorado's North Fork Valley, sight unseen. The first half of the book details how she adjusted from Manhattan to life on the ranch, and the second gives more than a hundred recipes that she developed using ingredients that she grew in her back yard, or was able to obtain from other ranchers in the area.

I've skimmed through the memoir - there is one particularly endearing piece on how she overcame the "FOOD. NOW!" mindset of the supermarket and learned to fly-fish.

The recipes drew my attention first, though. I opened up the cookbook today because I remembered the plethora of stuffed-veggie recipes that she had listed. There are at least three recipes alone for stuffed chiles or peppers and four or five for stuffed zucchini blossoms. [She also has recipes for some very tasty-looking soups that I can't wait to try out.] I picked the first recipe that I was to make out of this book - Poblanos Stuffed with Grated Zucchini - based on what I like to call the Melty Cheese Factor, or MCF if you will. That is, they are full of delicious, melty cheese. Yum.

I had trouble tracking down some of the ingredients, though, and so I had to modify the recipe - with much success I might add. In the original recipe, the accompanying sauce is made from zucchini blossoms, which I couldn't find anywhere. I threw together some things that I thought would be tasty, and followed the directions that were given for the sauce using those ingredients. I also added some mild cayenne and a little garlic to the recipe.

I've never had much luck with deep-frying, but today, all of that changed. After they are stuffed, the peppers are beer-battered and fried, and they came out of the hot oil with a beautifully golden and crispy crust. As my luck would have it, the batteries in my camera died, and I can offer no proof of this.

I had a bit of a kitchen accident when trying to dispose of all of the hot oil, a tale which I will regale you with for the purpose of self-deprecation here. As a person with half of a brain, I know that oil and water don't mix, and so I was careful not to dispose of the quart or so of dangerously hot canola I had left over down the sink or attempt to cool it off by running cold water into it. Safety first: I set the pan to the side of the sink to let the oil cool before dumping it into a plastic bottle and throwing it in the trash. However, the experimental chemist in me had one of those "What would happen if I . . .?" moments, and so I wet my hand under the faucet and, standing about six feet away, flicked a few droplets into the pan.

Steam rose from the surface, and then a popping sound and then . . . as the droplets that had not evaporated on contact sank to the bottom of the pan and then turned to steam and expanded, a GEYSER that would make Old Faithful question his self-worth leapt from the surface. The show lasted about fifteen seconds; the pan began to rock back and forth, threatening to spill as orbs of blistering oil flew across the kitchen.

Well, I guess that answered that.

[I should have known. This was somewhat of a repeat performance: Three years ago, sitting on the porch at my old house one night, someone asked what would happen if, say, a beer were poured into the Citranella candle. A similar explosion occurred, this one involving flaming balls of wax that were launched upwards of ten feet from the pour site.]

Here is the recipe, as I made it. The beer batter was a cinch, and I can't wait to try it on fish.

Poblanos Stuffed with Grated Zucchini

Adapted from At Mesa's Edge by Eugenia Bone
Serves 2 for a light dinner/lunch or 1 for dinner and lunch the next day

2-3 bottles of Heineken (or other lager)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
fine sea salt
6 T extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 c chopped onion
1 1/2 large zucchini, grated on the large holes of the grater (about 3 cups
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese, grated on the large holes of the grater
about 4 oz white button mushrooms
about 2 T fresh chopped parsley
cayenne, to taste
1 clove garlic, or to taste, minced
2 cloves garlic, or to taste, crushed
2 c homemade chicken stock
1/2 a tomato
4 large poblano peppers
freshly ground black pepper
canola oil, for frying
sour cream, to serve

1 medium bowl
2 medium skillets
a casserole, baking dish or roasting pan
a food processor
a deep skillet or pot for frying
a large strainer or colander
toothpicks

Make the batter by combining one bottle of beer, flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl. The batter should be runny like yogurt. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the broiler.

Heat 4 T of the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and saute until you can smell it from about 5 feet away, but before it begins to brown. Add 2 c of the onion and cook until it is translucent, about 5 min. Add a little salt and some pepper. Add the zucchini, and cook, stirring constantly, until no water from the zucchini can be seen in the bottom of the pan - about 10 min. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with cayenne to taste, and stir in the cheese. Set aside.

Rinse the peppers and lay them in the casserole, baking dish, or roasting pan so they are not touching one another. Put them directly under the broiler to char the skin. This takes about 20 min or so (but my oven is fussy, it may take shorter or longer, so watch them closely.) Turn them at about 8 min and again at about 17 so that the skin chars evenly on all sides.

Heat 2 T of olive oil in another medium skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 c chopped onion and the two crushed garlic cloves. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Saute until the onion is translucent, about 5 min. Add the mushrooms, tomato, and parsley and a sprinkle of cayenne, and saute for 1 min. Add 3/4 cup of the chicken broth and cook until the mushrooms are soft and the mixture begins to take on the red of the tomato, about 5 min. Puree the mixture in a food processor and set aside.

Remove the peppers from the oven and transfer them to a large plastic bag. Add about a teaspoon of cold water and seal the bag tight. When the peppers have cooled, in about 10 min, peel off the skin and remove the stems. (The stems should just pull away from the pepper, and most of the seeds will come with them.) Be careful not to tear the pepper as you are doing this. Rinse out the inside to get all of the seeds.

Gently spoon the zucchini/onion/cheese mixture into the peppers. Close the peppers with toothpicks. Heat about 1 1/2 in of canola oil in a large skillet or pot.

Put the pureed sauce back into its pan and on the burner over medium low heat. Add the rest of the chicken stock and allow it to simmer until it is reduced to the desired thickness.

Remove the batter from the fridge and give it a stir. Dip the peppers in the batter to coat, and then drop them carefully into the oil with a slotted spoon. Fry them for about a minute on each side. Transfer them to the strainer or colander with the slotted spoon when they are done.

Serve the peppers on top of the sauce and with a dollop of sour cream on the side, if you wish. Serve with salad and the other Heineken.

Yum!