Serbian Stuffed Peppers

Recently I had my Serbian friend come over and show me how to make one of his favorite meals from home: Stuffed peppers. I couldn't find the authentic peppers for it, but he told me any sort of longish peppers, not too hot, should work. I decided to try out using both poblano and anaheim peppers.

Anaheim peppers

Ingredients:
- oil
- 1 large onion
- 500 g (1 lb) ground beef
- salt & pepper
- 3 dL (1 1/3 cup) parboiled rice
- 4 poblano chilies
- 4 anaheim chilies
- 1 roma tomato
- water
- plain yogurt (to serve)

Stuffing the peppers

The finely chopped onion was sautéed in a little oil in a large pan. When the onion pieces were golden, the meat was added together with generous amounts of salt and pepper. When the ground beef was browned the rice were added and the contents of the pan were mixed well, before being allowed to stand while preparing the peppers.

All the peppers were rinsed, the stem was cut out (leaving as much wall as possible) and most of the seeds were rinsed out of them. The meat/onion/rice mixture was stuffed into the peppers using a spoon and a knife, making sure they were stuffed quite densely and each pepper was closed with a slice of roma tomato. The peppers were put in a oven proof tray and the rest of the meat/onion/rice mixture was added around them. Then water was added, so as to just cover the peppers. Covered with foil, the tray went in the oven at 200-225 C (400-450 F) for about 45 minutes, after which the foil was removed allowing the excess water to boil off during the last minutes of cooking.

Serve with plain yogurt.

The poblano peppers were notably hotter than the anaheim peppers and my Serbian friend concluded they were a very good substitute for the pepper he would have used at home. He also said it's possible to use dried peppers, they just need to soak in hot water prior to being stuffed.

Update: Using dried peppers.