Tamale Stuffed Peppers
It isn’t often that I get cooking inspiration from a wedding dinner, but that exact thing happened just this past weekend. There was a chicken dish that was stuffed with a tasty polenta, studded with pine nuts and cheese. I found myself wanting to eat the polenta on it’s own, and I really couldn’t wait to stuff something with a similar doughy corn mixture at home. I ended up doing sort of a mexitalian spin on the idea, using a tamale dough and stuffing the whole thing into a cubanelle pepper.
Cook some cornmeal in water for about 5 minutes.
Before adding it to masa harina.
Sausage, cheese, and cilantro go in next.
Have some friends help with the stuffing of the peppers.
Into the oven for just over an hour.
Last minute I realized that they would be kinda dry, so I whipped up the quickest chipotle tomato sauce ever.
The crunchy part at the end was a highlight for everyone, but I think we agreed that the softer part in the center of the pepper was important too.
The tamale dough steamed perfectly inside the pepper.
Jack cheese and chipotle in the sauce gave this dish just enough of a kick.
Tamale Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
- 3/4 Cups Cornmeal
- 3 Cups Water
- 1 Cup Masa Harina
- 3 Sausages casing removed, cooked
- 8 Ounces Pepperjack
- 4 Ounces Smoked Gouda
- Cilantro
- 14 Ounces Can Crushed Tomatoes
- 1 Tablespoon Chipotle Tobasco Sauce
- 1 Teaspoon Cumin
- 1 Tablespoon Red Vinegar
- 1 Clove Garlic minced
Instructions
- Mix grits and water and bring to a simmer. Cook about 5 minutes until thickened up. Remove from heat and mix with masa harina. Add in the sausages, some reserved fat from cooking the sausages, the cheese, and cilantro and mix well. Press the tamale mixture into some big cubanelle peppers. This made enough filling for 6 large peppers. Bake at 325 for about an hour and 15 minutes.
- Saute the garlic in olive oil, add tomatoes, vinegar, cumin, and tobasco sauce. Bring to a simmer and remove from heat
Another genius idea! Might have to try this when my peppers grow in the garden =)
This is probably the most delicious looking/sounding thing I have ever seen on your blog. WOW.
Those look wonderful! I wonder if you could cut the peppers in half before cooking so that you got more crunchy goodness but still had a soft middle… Yum!