Wild Rice and Chicken-Stuffed Peppers

When I was home last August, I went shopping in my parents’ pantry – or rather, was looking for last minute food items to fill up the empty spaces in my suitcase. Among many things, I ended up with a bag of wild rice. We prepared it a few nights ago, and this is what we did with the leftovers. You could probably stuff a lot of different things with this filling. Get creative. We used Piman (pronounced PEA-MAHN), the Japanese green pepper that’s much smaller than green bells in the States. I got the idea for this recipe from Rachael Ray, but she stuffs giant tomatoes instead of peppers.

10 Piman peppers (or 4 large green bell peppers)
2 TBS. olive oil (or 2 swigs around the pan)
3/4 cup prepared wild rice
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
a few handfuls of mushrooms (about 4 oz.), coarsely chopped
1 lb. ground chicken
1 TBS. paprika
1/2 cup sour cream (we used plain yogurt because it actually tastes more like sour cream than Japanese sour cream does)
salt & pepper

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C)

• Cut the tops off the peppers, and remove the seeds and membranes.

• Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion and garlic until onion softens and garlic is just barely light brown.

• Add the mushrooms and cook for a minute more.

• Add the ground chicken and cook until done, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon until crumbly.

• Stir in the paprika. Remove pan from heat and stir in the sour cream (or yogurt), and prepared wild rice. Add salt & pepper to taste.

• Fill the peppers with the chicken-wild rice mixture and place upright in a baking dish. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the peppers are tender and the top of the filling is lightly browned. Serves 2 hungry people.