If you want to cook an unusual, elegant and inexpensive dish, cook makhshi - stuffed vegetables in Arabic. The word mahshi (محشي) in translation from Arabic means "stuffed".
It is necessary
- - zucchini, cabbage, eggplant, grape leaves - only 1-1.5 kg;
- - rice or couscous - 6 tablespoons;
- - tomato - 3-4 pcs.;
- - garlic - 2-3 cloves;
- - vegetable oil - 3 tablespoons;
- - ground black pepper, cumin, salt, sugar - to taste.
Instructions
Step 1
First of all, you should prepare vegetables. You can choose one of their types or several.
Step 2
To prepare makhshi, zucchini and eggplants, you need to take the smallest ones you can find on the market. It is advisable that their length does not exceed the length of the palm, and the diameter of vegetables is 3-4 cm preferable. Peel the courgettes and eggplants from the stalks and cut off the tips of the fruits. Then cut each fruit crosswise, in two halves. Remove the fruit cores carefully.
Step 3
Divide the cabbage into leaves, cut them into strips no thinner than 10 cm, cutting out the hard parts. Cook for a few minutes in boiling salted water. Throw in a colander, dry. Roll gently over each leaf with a rolling pin, being careful not to damage the leaves.
Step 4
Fresh grape leaves are suitable only for young, harvested in spring, no larger than a palm. In other seasons, you can use canned grape leaves, which are sold in the market or in oriental spice stores. Fresh grape leaves are kept in boiling water for 7-10 minutes. You can also lightly boil fresh grape leaves while maintaining a constant temperature. The leaves scalded in this way are thrown into a colander and rinsed with cold water.
Step 5
Next, you need to prepare the tomato sauce. To do this, take the zucchini and eggplant cores, chop finely with a knife and place them in a cauldron or deep frying pan with a lid. If you are not using zucchini and eggplant, you can use coarsely grated carrots, pumpkin, or diced onions. Pour in vegetable oil and simmer until soft.
Now add the diced tomatoes, salt, sugar and spices, and finely chopped garlic. The sauce is cooked for 5-7 minutes.
Step 6
Transfer about a third of the resulting sauce to a separate saucepan. Add rice or couscous to this. Here, in addition to taste preferences, one should also focus on the cooking time of a dish with one or another component. The rice will cook for about 40 minutes, while the couscous will be ready in 20 minutes.
Step 7
Wrap the resulting filling in cabbage and grape leaves, winding a kind of Slavic cabbage rolls or eastern dolma. Or stuff the zucchini and eggplant with the filling. In this case, the open ends can be closed by making a kind of caps from thinly sliced carrots or cabbage leaves.
Step 8
Now place the stuffed vegetables in a saucepan and top with the remaining sauce. Now fill with water so that the water is either at the level of the food, or slightly above them. Place an inverted plate on top. Cook over low heat for 30-40 minutes.
Makhshi can be served hot or cold. The liquid remaining after cooking the makhshi can be served as a soup.
