samosa-stuffed red peppers

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Samosas are little savory deep-fried Indian pastries that are traditionally stuffed with a spicy potato and green pea filling. But who has time to make pastry dough, and then deep fry them? Forget it. I’ve never had the inclination to try making them myself. But the filling—ahh!  It’s so delicious, especially if you can use Alaskan Butterball potatoes—and Alaskan green peas, in season (or thawed from your freezer, which is what I did last week when I made this!). So I got the great idea to stuff red peppers with the filling! The red peppers are a beautiful color combination with the green and white filling, and they taste wonderful with it, too. Who needs pastry with potatoes, anyway? The red pepper really works! My husband, Dan, invented the grilling method to pre-cook the peppers.
The traditional filling has way more potatoes than peas, but I load mine with more peas and onions. The original filling recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks from way back, Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. You can make the filling earlier in the day, and then just grill, stuff and bake the peppers right before dinner.
When I stuff peppers, I halve them vertically—pole to pole. This makes shallow, wide vessels that are easy to fill, and they heat up quickly in the oven. Plus they look gorgeous this way, and they don’t fall over in the baking dish. Garam masala is an Indian spice blend—you can find it, along with the amchoor if you’re feeling adventurous, and the other Indian spices, at Summit Spice and Tea Co., at 1120 Huffman Rd.
I like to serve these peppers on top of a pile of the lentil salad in the following recipe, lightly spiced with Indian flavors. It’s not so spicy or overpowering that you can’t taste the stuffed red peppers.
filling

4 medium-sized potatoes, boiled whole, unpeeled, until tender, then cooled
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium or 2 large onions, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
2 fresh hot green chiles, or a 7-ounce can green chiles, minced
½ cup finely minced cilantro
3-4 cups fresh or defrosted frozen peas
2 teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander
1 ½ teaspoons garam masala
1 ½ teaspoons ground roasted cumin seeds
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice or 2 teaspoons amchoor (sour mango powder) and 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Peel the cooked, cooled potatoes and cut them into roughly ¼-inch dice. Heat the oil in a large skillet over a medium flame. Put in the onion, stirring and frying until golden-brown. Add the ginger, green chile, cilantro, and ¼ cup water and simmer for a few minutes. If the peas are fresh and need to be cooked, add them with the ginger and simmer until cooked through, but if they are defrosted, don’t add them until you add the potatoes. This will keep the peas from getting mushy. Add water as needed to keep the mixture from drying out.
2. Add the salt, coriander, garam masala, cumin, cayenne, lemon juice and amchoor (if using), and mix well. Then add the diced potatoes (and peas if you haven’t added them already). Stir and cook for 3 to 4 more minutes.

red peppers

6 red peppers

1. Preheat your grill to very hot, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Wash the peppers and cut them in half vertically, right through the stem, pole-to-pole. Trim off any white membrane and remove the seeds.
3. Put the peppers on the grill and close the lid. Grill them over high heat for 5-6 minutes on each side, until the peppers are softening nicely but not too floppy. You want them cooked enough to soften them slightly, but not so cooked that they will be hard to stuff.
4. Remove them from the grill and place them, open side up, in a 13x9” baking dish (you may have to use a little extra dish if you can’t fit them all in). Fill the pepper halves generously with the potato-pea filling, mounding it up as much as possible without spilling.
5. Bake the peppers, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, until the potato filling is piping hot and the peppers are done to your liking.