Recipe: Stuffed tomatoes with rice and herbs in yogurt sauce

If kousa bil laban and gemista had a baby....

On Sunday, after days of illness and eating very little, I had the compulsion to make stuffed tomatoes… looking to tone down some of the bright acidity, I found myself thinking of the beautiful Lebanese dish kousa bil laban, where zucchini stuffed with meat and rice are cooked in a garlic yogurt sauce. I love yogurt. In my head, it cures all ills. As I was in need of some curing, I decided to experiment.

I could spend some paragraphs here reflecting on stuffed things - cooked in broths or cooked alone. But since I am still feeling quite cooked myself, let’s get to the recipe.

Shopping list

• Four tomatoes (unfortunately, I eyeballed all my ratios on this one)

• 1 cup of rice - I used basmati and turned my leftover mixture into a side of tomato rice which we ate with extra sauce

• Herbs - I used parsley and dill

• 3 spring onions

• 1 tsp Olive oil

• Butter

• Salt

• Pepper

• Greek yogurt

• Water

• 1 tsp all purpose flour

• Three garlic cloves, minced

• Green leaves for serving

• Can of chickpeas (optional)

Method

1. Core your tomatoes

2. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and add these into a mixing bowl

3. Chop the whites and greens of your spring onions

4. Roughly chop your herbs

5. Add these and the rice to the same mixing bowl

6. Add salt, pepper, and olive oil to mixture and mix

7. Add this mixture to your hollowed tomatoes

8. If you have leftover mixture, at this point you can add it to a saucepan and cook as you would white rice

9. Add equal parts yogurt and water to a saucepan (I used 1 cup of each)

10. Add flour

11. Whisk continuously while bringing the mixture up to a gentle boil over medium heat

12. Add your tomatoes to the pan and add a small sliver of butter to the top of each tomato

13. Keep this simmering with the lid on for thirty minutes

14. Remove lid and add minced garlic (at this stage add a can of drained chickpeas to the yogurt sauce, if using)

15. Keep simmering for another thirty minutes (until rice is tender)

16. Serve tomatoes with yogurt sauce and chickpeas spooned over with a side of green leaves

Let me know if you try this and what you think! See you later this week when I hopefully have more than my current energy levels which - to use a technical term - suck.

xoxoxoxoxo Tahlia (broth fiend)