Stuffed courgettes in tomato sauce
This year I planted courgettes for the first time. I was so excited and looking forward to my first harvest. I was also really keen on the courgette flowers, which you can use to make really delicious starters. But the reason for my gardening activities was actually a very special dish: stuffed courgettes in tomato sauce.
Unfortunately, I am still super ignorant when it comes to gardening and was really afraid that I might have mistaken the young courgette plants for weeds and pulled them out of the ground before they even had a chance to say hello to the sun. And I was really looking forward to stuffed courgettes.
What didn’t seem to come at all at first, shot up out of the ground uncontrollably. I wasn’t in the garden for two days and on the third day “Mußa”, the giant mutant courgette, greeted me with a witty monologue about the excesses of today’s digitalisation. I told him something about my blog and ended up making him delicious courgette pancakes….
I was able to harvest the next courgettes before they could start chattering. Small and bright green – perfect for stuffed courgettes. When I’m really hungry, I look forward to authentic home cooking. And these courgettes stuffed with mince, tomatoes and rice in tomato sauce are the epitome of Lebanese home cooking for me.
I’ll tell you a trick for the preparation: Since we don’t want to cut the courgettes in half to scrape out the pulp, we have to get it out of the courgettes in a different way. An ordinary tablespoon helps here. I cut off the stalk generously and thus have a straight cut surface directly at the “head” of the courgette. Now simply pierce the handle of the tablespoon – several times if you like – and use circular movements to get the flesh out of the courgette. And then? Put in the filling 😉
As soon as the stuffed courgettes have taken a bath in the hot, cinnamon, mint and garlic-scented tomato sauce and are steaming on the table, there are only heart-eyed emojis – everyone is happy.
Recipe for stuffed courgettes in tomato sauce
Ingredients
- 1,5 Kg small, light green zucchini
For the filling
- 300 g Ground beef
- 40 g Round grain rice
- 1 Tomato
- 1/2 Onion
- 1/2 TSP Cinnamon
- Salt, pepper
For the sauce
- 500 ml strained tomatoes
- 1 L Water
- 2 TBSP Tomato paste
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 Garlic clove
- 1,5 TSP dried mint
- 1/2 TSP Cinnamon
- Salt, pepper
Zubereitung
Courgettes & stuffing
- Cut off the stalk of the courgette. The courgette now has a cut surface.
- Carefully pierce the cut surface with the handle of a tablespoon and scrape out the flesh. You can pierce the cut surface several times at the beginning to make it easier to scrape out the flesh. Then set the courgettes aside.
- Wash the round grain rice until the water is no longer milky. Pour off the water.
- Cut the tomatoes into cubes.
- Finely chop the onion.
- Mix all the ingredients for the filling together and season with cinnamon, salt and pepper.
- Now fill the courgettes with the mince mixture and set the filled courgettes aside.
Sauce
- Put the strained tomatoes and tomato paste in a large pot, fill with water and heat.
- Add the bay leaf, cinnamon, mint, salt and pepper and bring the sauce to the boil over a high heat.
- Crush the garlic and add to the sauce.
- Add the stuffed courgettes to the sauce and simmer, covered, over a medium heat for about 30 minutes.
